First created by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999, the emoji has become a huge part of everyday communication. Whether you love them or hate them, flying dollar bills, applauding hands and rolling eyes are here to stay.
Scientist suggest that the use of emojis will help us gain the same satisfaction from digital interactions as we enjoy from personal contact.
Almost two decades later, and we have over 2600 unique emojis to perfectly express what we feel, thank you Mr Kurita! Join HMD, the home of Nokia phones as we celebrate World Emoji Day on the 17th of July with these interesting emoji facts:
The most popular emoji used is “Person Shrugging”
1. The Nokia 3310 was chosen as one of the first 3 “National” emojis for Finland… it represents unbreakable!
2. South Africa’s favourite emoji is the “Kiss and wink”… how sweet SA!
3. French is the only language where a ‘smiley’ does not top the list for its use
4. On average, over 60 billion emojis are sent on Facebook every day
5. For the first time ever, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year was a pictograph! The “Face with Tears of Joy” was crowned word of the year in 2015
6. According to Emojipedia, some of the most requested emoji’s include afro, a bagel and hands making a heart
7. To include all races, a diversity pack was released in 2017
8. It has become so trendy that the Museum of Modern Art displays the original emoji collection on canvas
9. In 2009, Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick was completely translated into emoji’s