Emoji, these little pictograms, celebrate their holiday on July 17th during World Emoji Day. They originally came from Japan, combining the words e (picture) and moji (character). Their purpose is to add emotion to text and replace words. They exist in all kinds of genres – from smiley faces to food, sports, animals, and weather.
The first set of emojis was created by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999 for the Japanese telecommunications company NTT DoCoMo. Today, emojis are an indispensable part of digital communication. They help us express feelings that plain text can’t capture. In 2015, Oxford Dictionaries even named the Face with Tears of Joy emoji as the Word of the Year.
Emojis not only liven up our messages but have also become a part of pop culture. They have their own movie (The Emoji Movie) 2017), musicals, and even museum exhibitions