Happy Emoji Day
Happy Emoji Day!
Just like Ramen, Emojis is another export from the land of the rising sun.
Whilst Emojis can trace their popularity back to the emoticons of the 1970s, and their popularity grew through the chatrooms of the 1990s, it was Japanese designer Shigetaka Kurita who helped them become universally popular.
In 1999, NTT DOCOMO, Shigetaka helped a Japanese cell phone company, released a set of 176 emojis for mobile phones and pagers.
Even the name is Japanese – a combination of the two Japanese words for picture and letter. Kurita used Japanese graphic novels, or MANGA to create the first emoji library.
In 2015, and for the first time ever, Oxford dictionary deemed an emoji its “Word of the Year.” The “Face with Tears of Joy” 😂 emoji earned the title because it was the most frequently used emoji worldwide.
In general, the dictionary noted, the word emoji saw a large increase in use that year.
Today, more than 3,000 emojis exist.
And if you’re wondering why Emoji Day is celebrated on July 17th – then the answer is pretty simple – it’s the date on the calendar emoji!