Emoji may not have replaced text just yet, but they are quite close. On July 17, we celebrate World Emoji Day to mark the graphic icons who have very well revolutionised digital communication. In recent years, these little Pictionary forms have risen to socially accepted prominence, infiltrating all corners of our talking! From WhatsApp to Facebook, Twitter to Instagram and sometimes even in work emails, we use emojis everywhere. There are a lot of things that we still urge to know why July 17 has been specially selected for the occasion. Here we have combined some history and significance behind the celebration of World Emoji Day 2018.

While this day has been declared a global celebration of Emojis, it is primarily recognized among netizens throughout social media. If you have browsed through social media, especially Twitter and Facebook, you have seen your friends using #WorldEmojiDay as they share their favourite symbols.

History & Significance of World Emoji Day 2018:

Towards the end of the 1990s, Japanese designer, Shigetaka Kurita who was part of the team working on a mobile internet platform in Japan, created the first emoji. While they were popular in Asia during the end of the 20th century, not every commoner was aware of these pictorial representations. It was only after Apple released ios 6 when users learned that they could activate the emoji keyboard.

In 2015, emoji historian and founder of Emojipedia, Jeremy Burge created World Emoji Day which is observed as an unofficial holiday on July 17. He selected this date because July 17 displayed in the “Calendar Emoji” for the Apply calendar. There is no formal reason as to why we celebrate this day, but just recognition to all the Pictionary forms who rescued us many times to express our accurate feelings. Since 2015, individuals across the globe mark this day on July 17.

World Emoji Day 2018 Celebrations:

Facebook does keep track of everything. During World Emoji Day 2018, Facebook has released many exciting facts about emojis. For example, that over 5 billion emojis are sent out through Facebook messenger daily, and more than 60 million ones are exchanged on the platform! In a series of infographics, the popular social media site discloses which Emojis are most popular in individual countries. Later this year, it has been announced that more than 70 new emoji characters are slated to come in iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Emojis make the world go round! It is very convenient to send Emojis rather than type out an entire sentence. Because of obvious reasons! Humans in many cases tend to find out more comfortable ways to accomplish things, and our typing language is no different. We went for texting an entire sentence to create related acronyms for it like OMG, ROFL, etc. Once emojis are put in place, it has come to a massive relief to all the snoozy netizens. Use them in all your text messages and posts a little extra this World Emoji Day 2018.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 17, 2018 12:49 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).