World Emoji Day is an annual unofficial holiday occurring on 17 July each year, intended to celebrate

emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis; , ) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram, or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of modern emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from type ...

; in the years since the earliest observance, it has become a popular date to make product or other announcements and releases relating to emoji.

Origins and celebrations

The date originally referred to the day Apple premiered its iCal calendar application in 2002. The day, July 17, was displayed on the Apple Color Emoji version of the calendar emoji (📅) as an Easter egg. World Emoji Day was created on 17 July 2014 by Jeremy Burge, the founder of

Emojipedia Emojipedia is an emoji reference website which documents the meaning and common usage of emoji characters in the Unicode Standard. Most commonly described as an emoji encyclopedia or emoji dictionary, Emojipedia also publishes articles and prov ...

. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' reported that Burge chose 17 July "based on the way the calendar emoji is shown on iPhones". For the first World Emoji Day, Burge told ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' "there were no formal plans put in place" other than choosing the date. ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' suggested in 2018 that readers use this day to "communicate with only emoji".

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

reported that the day was Twitter's top trending item on 17 July in 2015. In 2016,

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

changed the appearance of

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

character to display 17 July on Android,

Gmail Gmail is the email service provided by Google. it had 1.5 billion active user (computing), users worldwide, making it the largest email service in the world. It also provides a webmail interface, accessible through a web browser, and is also ...

, Hangouts, and

ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes styled as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is an operating system designed and developed by Google. It is derived from the open-source operating system and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user ...

products. As of 2020, all major platforms except Microsoft had switched to show 17 July on this emoji, to avoid confusion on World Emoji Day.

Announcements

Since 2017,

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

has used each World Emoji Day to announce upcoming expansions to the range of emojis on iOS. On World Emoji Day 2015,

Pepsi Pepsi is a Carbonated water, carbonated soft drink with a cola flavor, manufactured by PepsiCo which serves as its flagship product. In 2023, Pepsi was the second most valuable soft drink brand worldwide behind Coca-Cola; the two share a long ...

launched PepsiMoji which included an emoji keyboard and custom World Emoji Day Pepsi cans and bottles. These were initially released in Canada and expanded to 100 markets in 2016. In 2016,

Sony Pictures Animation Sony Pictures Animation Inc. (also referred to as Sony Animation Studios and abbreviated to SPA) is an American animation studio owned by Sony Entertainment's Sony Pictures Entertainment through their Motion Picture Group division and found ...

used World Emoji Day to announce T.J. Miller as the first cast member for '' The Emoji Movie,'' Google released "a series of new emoji that are more inclusive of women from diverse backgrounds", and Emojipedia launched the first World Emoji Awards. Other World Emoji Day announcements in 2016 came from

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, and

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings ...

. London's

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orch ...

presented 20 operas and ballets in emoji form, Google announced the end of its blob emoji and winners of the World Emoji Awards were announced from the trading floor of the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...

and broadcast on Cheddar. In 2018,

Kim Kardashian Kimberly Noel Kardashian (born October 21, 1980) is an American media personality, socialite, and businesswoman. She first gained media attention as a friend and stylist of Paris Hilton, but received wider notice after the celebrity sex tape ...

released her '' Kimoji'' fragrance line on World Emoji Day, Apple previewed new emoji designs including redheads and replaced executive photos on its corporate leadership page with emojis, Google announced the return of "blob emojis" in sticker form, and Facebook announced that "700 million emojis are used in Facebook posts each day". On World Emoji Day 2019, the award for ''Most Popular New Emoji'' was announced as the Smiling Face With Hearts In 2020 the Most Popular New Emoji was announced as the White Heart on Australia's The Morning Show.

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

used World Emoji Day in 2021 to preview an overhaul to the

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

emoji set using the

Fluent Design System Fluent Design System (codenamed "Project Neon") is a design language developed in 2017 by Microsoft. Fluent Design is a revamp of Metro (design language), Microsoft Design Language 2 that includes guidelines for the designs and interactions u ...

for the first time. Facebook used World Emoji Day 2021 to announce Soundmojis, Google unveiled a solution for faster emoji updates on Android, and Emojipedia revealed sample images for the latest emoji draft list.

Events

Maggie Gyllenhaal Margalit Ruth "Maggie" Gyllenhaal ( , ; born November 16, 1977) is an American actress and filmmaker. Part of the Gyllenhaal family, she is the daughter of filmmakers Stephen Gyllenhaal and Naomi Achs, and the older sister of actor Jake Gylle ...

Andrew Rannells Andrew Scott Rannells (born August 23, 1978) is an American actor. He is best known for originating the role of Elder Kevin Price in the 2011 Broadway musical ''The Book of Mormon (musical), The Book of Mormon'', for which he was nominated for th ...

and

Olivia Palermo Olivia Palermo (born February 28, 1986) is an American socialite, fashion influencer, Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur, model (person), model and celebrity, television personality. Early life Olivia Palermo was born on February 28, 1986, in Ne ...

attended the

World Emoji Day Red Carpet event in 2016. In 2017, Paula Abdul,

Maya Rudolph Maya Khabira Rudolph (born July 27, 1972) is an American actress and comedian. In 2000, she became a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show ''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL''). During her tenure on the show, she appeared in supporting roles in ...

, Liam Aiken, Jeremy Burge and Fern Mallis at the

Saks Fifth Avenue Saks Fifth Avenue (Colloquialism, colloquially Saks) is an American Luxury goods, luxury department store chain founded in 1867 by Andrew Saks. The first store opened in the F Street and 7th Street shopping districts, F Street shopping distric ...

red carpet on World Emoji Day. The

Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story, Art Deco-style supertall skyscraper in the Midtown South neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its n ...

was lit in "emoji yellow" for World Emoji Day in 2017, and the New York Stock Exchange Closing Bell was rung by

Jake T. Austin Jake Toranzo Austin Szymanski (born December 3, 1994), known professionally as Jake T. Austin, is an American actor. Beginning his career as a child actor at the age of seven, Austin is best known for his role as Max Russo on the Disney Channel ...

of ''The Emoji Movie'' and Jeremy Burge from Emojipedia. A

Guinness World Record ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, listi ...

was attempted in

Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...

on World Emoji Day in 2017 for the "largest gathering of people dressed as emojis". Musical '' Emojiland'' premiered

off-broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

in New York City at The Acorn Theatre on World Emoji Day 2018 as part of the New York Musical Festival. In 2019, the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

hosted an event on World Emoji Day with

president Mark Davis and Emojipedia founder Jeremy Burge discussing the future of emoji and the National Museum of Cinema in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

launched the exhibition ''#FacceEmozioni 1500–2020: From Physiognomy to Emojis'' also on July 17. On 17 July 2022, millions of people in multiple different countries across the whole world, including

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, celebrated World Emoji Day 2022 despite the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

World Emoji Day edition dates

Pre-2022 (2014–21)

2022 and beyond

In the news

In 2016, Twitter noted that Australia's "emoji-loving" Foreign Minister

Julie Bishop Julie Isabel Bishop (born 17 July 1956) is an Australian former politician who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs (Australia), Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2018 and Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia#Federal deputy leader ...

shared her birthday with World Emoji Day. In 2017, US House Speaker

Paul Ryan Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is an American politician who served as the List of Speakers of the United States House of Representatives, 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. A member of the ...

released a video on World Emoji Day claiming he "goes crazy on emojis" which was widely criticized. In 2018, '' Adweek'' reported that social media posts from the United States

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

Army An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by ...

and

Navy A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...

seemed like "an odd fit for the breezy joys" of World Emoji Day, while other outlets called these "a series of bleached, seemingly nothing tweets filled with a bunch of random emojis" and "the most terrible bastardization of an emoji". In 2021, ''

Tourism New Zealand Tourism New Zealand is the marketing agency responsible for promoting New Zealand as a tourism destination internationally. It is the trading name of the New Zealand Tourism Board, a Crown entity established under the New Zealand Tourism Board A ...

'' used World Emoji Day to promote the concept of a kiwi emoji.

References

External links

*
Calendar Emoji
{{Unofficial observances Emoji July observances Recurring events established in 2014 Unofficial observances