July 15, 2022

World Emoji Day

Did you know that July 17th is World Emoji Day? 😱 Can you believe that emojis first appeared in our digital lives in 1999! This first set consisted of 176 symbols that were used in early chatrooms, with the basic symbols designed to convey weather, time, tech and traffic.   

Emojis have added fun, unexpected depth, and non-verbal cues to our online communication. 

Research tells us that the inclusion of an emoji can help people make sense of the overall tone of a message. Sometimes removing ambiguity. Think about how you use 🤪 to flag the comical tone of your text. Or the ☕ when you are leaving a digital work chat for a quick break.   

Emojis also help us respond more promptly. We can give a 👍 faster than we can type a response to a request in a post or chat stream. Or we can respond with ❤️ to an idea or potential project proposed by someone, sharing in seconds how good we think that idea is. 

Emojis can also help us to respond to communication more promptly. We can give a thumbs up to text communication on Microsoft Teams that we understand a task that has been given to us faster than typing a message. We can also respond to communication with a love heart on Teams to show that we think an idea or potential project raised by someone is really good.

Emoji evolution

Photo by Eugene Zhyvchik on Unsplash

The different types of emojis that we use in our day to day lives are only growing. ? Check out this just-posted list of new 2022-2023 emojis. How do new emojis get created I hear you ask? Did you know that there’s actually an official body that approves which new emojis are created!

You can also hear different stories about people around the world trying to get their new emoji created in a 2020 “The Emoji Story” documentary. You can watch the trailer (2:02) for the documentary on YouTube. If you are interested, a copy of documentary is available through the Deakin Library. 

Below are some emoji tips, resources and news for you: 

• Zoom chat tips – Next time you are on Zoom, have a look at the variety of emojis you can use. 
• Emoji encylopedia – Have a look at all the current emojis with copy paste code function. 
• Emojicode – An open-source programming language consisting of emojis. 
• Emoji as a universal language – Article outlining history of emojis and asks is it a language? 
• Emoji activism? – A New Yorker article all about the radical emoji-activist movement.

Post authored by Emeka Anele and Kat Cain.

Posted byEmeka Anele