Express yourself: It's World Emoji Day

Thanks to texts and tweets, we’re all about quick and simple communication — the quicker and simpler, the better.

That’s where the emoji comes in — why type “I’m happy” or “I’m sad,” when a quick click can give plenty of options for expressing those emotions and an array of other thoughts, feelings, animals, vegetables, minerals (well, gemstones) and other phenomena?

The expressive little symbols have become so ubiquitous that they have their own day.

Today is World Emoji Day. Let’s celebrate with a few fast facts:

• Japanese artist Shigetaka Kurita created the first set of 176 emojis in 1999, as a simple way to convey information on the mobile platform of his employer,NTT DoCoMo, then Japan’s biggest mobile-phone operator. These early emojis favored symbols, objects and characters over faces.

The world's first emojis, designed 1999 by Shigetaku Kurita.#WorldEmojiDay pic.twitter.com/cxtMVCrSSd

— Present & Correct (@presentcorrect) July 17, 2020

• Kurita’s original set of emojis are now part of the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, on display in the museum lobby.

• According to emojipedia.org, as of March, there were 3,304 emojis available on iOS, Android, Windows and macOS. The artwork for each emoji varies by platform, but the meaning remains the same.

It’s #WorldEmojiDay! The Great Wave by Hokusai is a famous artwork with its own emoji ?

Find out more you might not have known about this iconic image in our blog post: https://t.co/atBO1QUmLh pic.twitter.com/cRxnImoEua

— British Museum (@britishmuseum) July 17, 2020

• The five most popular emojis of 2019, according to brandwatch.com, were face with tears of joy, loudly crying face, red heart, rolling on the floor laughing and smiling face with heart eyes.

• “Moby Dick,” Herman Melville’s dense masterpiece of American literature, is available in an all-emoji version titled (of course) “Emoji Dick.” The 736-page conceptual translation by Fred Benenson, Kickstarter’s second full-time employee, is available here.

Herman Melville's Moby-Dick has been translated, line by line, into 'Emoji Dick'. ? (Images: Fred Benenson/https://t.co/rsLzht9Qrr) pic.twitter.com/OkW1lPhIDh

— Quite Interesting (@qikipedia) June 17, 2018

• The terms “emoji” and “emoticon” are not interchangeable. Emojis are real images and symbols rendered on a device, emoticons are simple expressions and faces created with basic characters on a keyboard.

Here’s to the emoji, a universal language, understandable and available to everyone — even that one pesky NFL quarterback that western Pennsylvanians love to hate (insert frowny face here):

Celebrating #WorldEmojiDay with the Brady Bunch ? pic.twitter.com/naLusQpCn4

— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@Buccaneers) July 17, 2020