Emoji

Emoji are small pictures.

People use them in messages. They show how a person feels.

They can even replace words.

Long ago, people used symbols like :-) to show smiles.

These were called emoticons.

Companies in Japan made the first emoji sets. They made them for phones. One set had 90 small pictures.

Some pictures showed the weather or sports. One set even had a pile of poo!

Now, emoji are used all over the world. They are a big part of how we talk.

Emoji are small pictures used in digital messages.

They help show feelings in typed text. They can also replace whole words.

Before emoji, people used emoticons. These were symbols made from letters and marks. An example is the smiley face :-)

Scientist Scott Fahlman suggested this in 1982.

Japanese companies made the first emoji sets. These were for new mobile phones. A company called SoftBank made a set in 1997. It had 90 small, black and white pictures. These showed things like weather and sports.

In 1999, Shigetaka Kurita made a famous set. He used ideas from Japanese manga. Manga are Japanese comics. His set had 176 bright colors.

Emoji grew popular around the world later. A group called Unicode began to help. Unicode is a way to make text the same on all devices. This made emoji work on many different phones and computers. Now, emoji are a big part of how people talk everywhere.

Emoji are small pictures used in digital messages and on web pages.

They can be symbols like smileys or small drawings. These pictures serve a very important purpose in our digital lives. They help show emotions that might be missing in typed text. They can also act as symbols that replace whole words.

This makes talking through a screen feel much more natural.

How do these pictures work in a message? Before modern emoji, people used emoticons made from keyboard symbols.

In 1982, a scientist named Scott Fahlman suggested using marks like :-) to show feelings. Later, companies created sets of actual tiny pictures. These pictures are sent as part of the text. When you tap a smiley, your device sends a specific code. The other person's device reads that code and shows the picture. This way, everyone sees the same small image.

The history of emoji began with Japanese phone companies.

In 1988, a Sharp device had a very early set of pictures. SoftBank released a set of 90 black and white pictures in 1997. These tiny 12-by-12 pixel images showed things like the weather and sports.

A very famous set came in 1999 from Shigetaka Kurita. He worked for NTT DoCoMo to make 176 colorful emoji. He got his ideas from Japanese manga and street signs. His work is even shown in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Emoji became a global tool because of a group called Unicode.

In 2007, Google began trying to make emoji a standard for everyone. Mark Davis and his team worked with the Unicode Technical Committee. They wanted emoji to work on all kinds of different devices. In 2009, Apple and Google started adding their own emoji support. Apple released emoji for the iPhone in 2008. By 2010, a standard set of 722 emoji was released to the world.

You can see how emoji connect to many things you already know.

Many people remember using special fonts like Wingdings to send icons. You might also recognize the heart symbol used in old ads.

Today, emoji are a huge part of popular culture. They are used by people all around the world every single day. They turn simple text into a way to share our real feelings.

An emoji is a small digital image used in electronic messages and web pages. These images can be pictograms, logograms, ideograms, or simple smileys.

Their primary role is to provide emotional cues that are often lost in typed text. They can also function as a logographic system, where a single symbol replaces a whole word. Because they add nuance to digital speech, they have become a massive part of global popular culture. In 2015, Oxford Dictionaries even named "emoji" its word of the year.

To understand how they work, we must look at how computers handle symbols. Before modern emoji, people used emoticons. These are text-based symbols like :-) or :-(.

Computer scientist Scott Fahlman suggested these in 1982 to express emotion. Modern emoji evolved from this idea into actual graphics. Today, these graphics are part of the Unicode Standard. Unicode is an international standard for how computers represent text. When you send an emoji, you are actually sending a specific code. The receiving device reads that code and displays the correct image.

Emoji history is a complex timeline of different sets and creators. While many think emoji started in 1999, recent discoveries show earlier versions. In 2024, researchers found emoji sets on Sharp and NEC devices from the early 1990s. The 1988 Sharp PA-8500 actually contains what may be the earliest known emoji set.

Later, in 1997, SoftBank's J-Phone launched a set on the SkyWalker DP-211SW. This set included 90 monochrome, 12-by-12 pixel images. These depicted things like moon phases, weather, and even a "Pile of Poo." However, low sales meant this specific set was rarely used by the public.

One of the most influential creators was Shigetaka Kurita. In 1999, he created a set for NTT DoCoMo's i-mode mobile platform.

Kurita designed 176 brightly colored emoji. He drew inspiration from Japanese manga, Chinese characters, and weather pictograms. His work included facial expressions and general-use symbols like sports or actions. These designs were so significant that they are displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. While his set was famous, the yellow-faced emoji we use today actually evolved from other emoticon sets rather than his work.

As mobile technology grew, the need for a universal system became clear. In the early 2000s, different Japanese companies used different emoji sets. They did not collaborate to create one uniform standard. This made it difficult for users to communicate across different platforms. During this time, individuals like Nicolas Loufrani also contributed. He created "The Smiley Dictionary," which grew to include 887 smileys and 640 ASCII emotions by 2003.

His tools became popular plugins for online forums and instant messaging services like MSN Messenger.

Standardization arrived through the hard work of the Unicode Consortium. In 2007, Google began petitioning to make emoji a standard. Mark Davis and his colleagues, Kat Momoi and Markus Scherer, led this effort.

They wanted to ensure emoji worked across all devices. By 2010, Unicode accepted a proposal for 625 new characters. This helped bridge the gap between Japanese cellular formats and the rest of the world. Before this full integration, companies like Apple and Google used "Private Use Area" schemes to show emoji. Apple released its first color emoji for the iPhone in late 2008.

By October 2010, Unicode 6.0 was released with a standard set of 722 emoji. This allowed emoji to spread far beyond Japan.

Apple made its emoji keyboard available to users outside of Japan in 2011. The system continued to grow, such as when Unicode 7.0 added symbols from the Wingdings and Webdings fonts in 2014. This added roughly 250 more characters to the library. Today, emoji connect many different systems, from simple text messages to complex digital communication across the entire planet.