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We use them every single day to text our friends, but how much do you actually know about these colorful little characters? Test your emoji knowledge with this fun quiz!
Keyboard Novice 0–4 · Chat Expert 5–8 · Emoji Maestro 9–10
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For the first time ever, Oxford Dictionaries chose a pictograph instead of a traditional word for its Word of the Year in 2015. The 'Face with Tears of Joy' was chosen because it was the most heavily used emoji globally that year.
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Apple replaced its realistic black revolver emoji with a bright green water pistol in 2016 to reduce violent imagery in texts. Other major tech platforms soon followed suit to keep communication consistent.
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The first emoji appeared on Japanese phones: a small set on a SoftBank phone in 1997, then Shigetaka Kurita's famous set of 176 for NTT Docomo in 1999. The word comes from the Japanese e (picture) and moji (character); that it sounds like 'emotion' is pure coincidence.
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Anyone can write and submit a detailed proposal to the Unicode Consortium to suggest a new emoji. If you can prove that the image is highly requested and unique, they might actually add it to phones worldwide.
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Smiling poo characters were already a running joke in Japanese manga such as Dr. Slump, by the creator of Dragon Ball. The emoji followed that cute tradition, which helped turn a gross idea into one of the best-loved emoji.
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The monkeys covering their eyes, ears, and mouth represent the Japanese proverb 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil'. Their actual names in Japan are Mizaru, Kikazaru, and Iwazaru.
Photo: Jpatokal, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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The Emoji Movie was a box office success but was heavily panned by critics, becoming the first animated film to win the infamous Worst Picture award at the Razzies. It featured Patrick Stewart voicing the poop emoji.
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The pink-swirled white circle emoji represents a Japanese narutomaki, which is a cured fish cake topping often served with ramen. It has been part of the official emoji library since the very beginning.
Photo: Ocdp, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
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Apple's calendar emoji showed July 17, the day its iCal app was unveiled in 2002. When Jeremy Burge started World Emoji Day in 2014, he simply borrowed the date from that little calendar.
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The emoji's official name is 'Japanese Castle'. It shows the typical Japanese style, with white walls and layered, curved roofs. The most famous real example is Himeji Castle, nicknamed the 'White Heron Castle'.
Photo: Nikos Kitsakis, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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