The Ultimate History of Emojis

In this post, we cover the ultimate history of emojis. Have you ever wondered where they originated, or when they showed up? Or, were they always called “emoji”, or was there a precursor term? Get answers to all of these burning questions below.

Where Did it All Start?

Believe it or not, the term “emoji” wasn’t always used. In the early days, “emoticons” referred to the now well-known smiley face, 🙂 and frown face, 🙁

All in all, in 1982, a computer scientist, Scott Falham, proposed using a “smiley face” to distinguish jokes. Comparatively, he suggested using a 🙁 for more serious topics. In the long run, people would come to use these worldwide.

Emoticons in the Digital Revolution

Altogether in the 1990s, the popularity of mobile phones surged along with text messaging. Additionally, those without mobile phones took to the internet for chatting. Correspondingly, both groups of users began using emoticons frequently. It wasn’t long before users craved more ways to express themselves via emojis.

When Did it Become "Emoji"?

It wasn’t until 1999, when Shigetaka Kurita released a set of pictograms that were used to enhance the visual interface for phone devices of a Japanese mobile phone company. As shown below, some of these icons represented common sports like soccer, golf, and baseball.

So, When Did Google Release Their Emojis?

In 2007, a team at Google requested that the Unicode Consortium recognize and create standards around emojis. After careful consideration, their original proposal was accepted in May 2007, which included 114 emojis.

What About Apple?

Apple released a set of 471 emojis, for the Japanese market only, in 2008. However, two engineers (Yasuo Kida and Peter Edberg) at Apple proposed the addition of 608 new emojis into the Unicode Standard. Two years later, the proposal was accepted, bringing the total number of official emojis to 722.

The Emoji Evolution

In the first place, there were really only smiles, frowns, and the winking smile. However, as you progress through the images, you’ll notice more and more unique emojis are introduced.

Scroll or swipe through different stages of the evolution of the emoji below.

Joke and serious markers used at Carnegie Mellon in 1982
Kaomojis, "face characters" with expressive eyes
Original set of emojis designed by Shigetaka Kurita
Apple Color Emoji - the original set introduced in 2008
Android emojis available to non-Japanese phones in 2013
Emoji 13.1 is scheduled to be released in 2021

Emojis in the Future

To say nothing of emojis now, it was announced recently that Unicode has approved 217 new emojis that will be released at some point this year. Uniquely, some of the new sets introduced are same-sex couples with hearts between them. In addition, there is a taped heart, a heart on fire, and a sighing emoji.

In Conclusion

Finally, emojis seem commonplace these days. Given these points, we can only expect more emojis to be added to the Unicode Standard as time progresses. Do you have a favorite emoji or emoticon? Have you ever even heard the term “emoticon” ? Let us know in the comments below.

Resources & Further Reading

Pardes, A. (2018, February 1). The complete history of emoji. Retrieved February 08, 2021, from https://www.wired.com/story/guide-emoji/
Rewinska, A. (2020, July 20). The history of emoji in 5 minutes • Blue Drop. Retrieved February 08, 2021, from https://www.bluedropstudio.com/post/the-history-of-emoji-in-5-minutes
Walker, T. (2019, February 07). Emojis: The complete history 📚📖. Retrieved February 08, 2021, from https://medium.com/@heytory/emojis-the-complete-history-6dc81a330144

The Ultimate History of Emojis