World Emoji Day is a celebration of emojis and was first started in 2014, by Jeremy Burge, founder of Emojipedia. Every year, it is celebrated on July 17. 

This is because July 17 is the date famously displayed on the calendar emoji. However, it has much greater significance, since emoji-related releases and announcements are also made on this day. 

Emojis roughly mean “picture word” and only coincidentally seem to be derived from “emotions”. Shigetaka Kurita is the designer behind the first modern-day emojis and the world’s first emoji library as well, which has now been acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

With a move towards email communication, texting or typing has shifted to mobile devices, which is why emojis are used more since communication is getting shorter. Thus, these additions come in handy to convey “tone and emotion”, as per the MoMa site, which adds, “Emoji, when combined with text, allow for more nuanced intonation. Filling in for body language, they reassert the human within the deeply impersonal, abstract space of electronic communication.” 

Also Read | On World Emoji Day, learn what these frequently-used emojis really mean

When Kurita’s first library came out, it had 176 emojis for mobile phones. This was back in 1999, but emojis really caught on in 2007 with the release of the iPhone. It had an emoji keyboard embedded in the device for Japanese users but found popularity among non-Japanese users too. 

Unicode approved standardized usage of emojis in 2010. Following this, Google, Twitter, Microsoft and Facebook started creating their own set of “picture words”. Now, there are 3,633 emojis being used and more are expected to be added through 2022. 

Also Read | World Emoji Day: A look at the most confusing emojis

Emojis have become increasingly important to contemporary culture as a language of communication of its own. MoMa deciding to acquire the first emoji library, among its artwork, is a testament to the same, and why Emoji Day remains a worldwide celebration.