Emojis have become an important part of our day-to-day conversations over text. Most people use emojis to express themselves beyond words on digital media. But why is July 17 celebrated as World Emoji Day? Here's what you need to know:
In the 1980s, basic emoticons like ':-)' and ':-(' started being used to make text messages more expressive.
Initially, the Pocket Bell pager device included a heart sign that could be used while exchanging messages in 1995. It was mostly used by teenagers.
In 1999, a Japanese designer, Shigetaka Kurita, was inspired by Japanese comics and created the first set of emojis to appeal to teenagers.
Emojis gained more popularity after they were added to the Unicode standard and then later were included in iPhones in 2008.
With time, new emojis are kept being added to make nonverbal communication easy. Today, there are thousands of emojis representing different moods, foods, objects, flags, and much more!