What’s your favourite emoji? With so many choose from, it’s only right that we have a national date to celebrate… and this week saw the fourth World Emoji Day – the date was chosen as 17 July as it’s the date shown on the emoji calendar.
From their introduction in 1999, today emoji is described as the fastest growing language in history, and are used more than six billion times a day! And in 2015 the crying, smiling face, was even awarded Oxford Dictionaries word of the year.
In fact, we’re using emojis so much that more than a third of British adults believe they are actually to blame for the deterioration of English language. Academics have also warned that using emojis in professional emails could affect future job prospects ‘by making colleagues less likely to share information with you’. But it’s not all bad news, researchers have also found that emojis ‘promote inclusivity and are helping people feel included on social media.
Back to World Emoji day, and this year, Apple took the opportunity to preview the new emojis coming this autumn – a total of 230 new characters to add to our growing collection of must-have text inclusions.
New for 2019 are a range of inclusive-disability and diversity themed emojis. The update includes same-sex and gender inclusive couples, a mix of skin tones as well as recognising disabilities, from manual and motorised wheelchairs and hearing aids to walking canes and prosthetic limbs – even a guide dog. And a drop of blood ‘the result of a campaign led by Plan International UK, which saw more than 55,000 people calling for a period emoji to be added to the global keyboard.’
Of course, if you need a yawning face, snorkel, flamingo, waffle or yo-yo, you’ll soon find those too!
And just in case you were wondering… according to emojipedia the world emoji award winner for 2019… is ‘Smiling Face with Hearts’.
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