The Adopt-A-Character program was first launched in 2015 and is one of the primary means through which Unicode supports its work alongside its various membership options.
Each adoption helps Unicode's goal to support the world's languages be encoded digitally. As noted by Unicode in their announcement for the new site:
This has included preserving historical scripts such as Egyptian hieroglyphics and providing better language support for digitally disadvantaged and under-resourced languages such as Hanifi Rohingya used in Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Roughly 150,000 different characters are available for adoption (149,186 to be exact), including all 3,664 emojis that have been recommended up to last year's Emoji 15.0.
This means that you're able to adopt the likes of the 🫠 Melting Face, 🫶 Heart Hands, and 🥹 Face Holding Back Tears across three different levels: limited gold and silver levels (which can be obtained on a first-come-first-served basis), as well as an unlimited bronze level - all of which could be a unique gift for 💘 Valentine’s Day or any other occasion.
Additionally, if all are successfully approved, there'll be roughly another 500 new emojis eligible for adoption in September of this year once Emoji 15.1 has been added. Current candidates include a Phoenix Bird, a Lime, a Head Shaking Vertically, and several hundred new emoji sequences based on emoji directionality.
Above: the six unique draft emoji candidates for Emoji 15.1, in their possible Noto Color Emoji design. Image: Jennifer Daniel.
New emoji designs have arrived on iOS as part of the first iOS 16.4 beta, including the shaking face, two pushing hands, and the much-requested plain pink heart emoji.
Above: New emojis now available in the first beta for iOS 16.4. Image: Apple designs / Emojipedia composite.
A total of 31 new emojis have made their Apple device debut in today's beta release, with all 31 of these designs drawn from Unicode's September 2022 recommendation list, Emoji 15.0.
🧮 1 Smileys, 2 Hands, 3 Colorful Hearts
The new emojis in today's beta release of iOS 16.4 include one new smiley face, three new colored heart emojis, and two new hand gestures that should support the usual five skin tone modifiers, though the current beta doesn't allow them to be accessed.
Above: 1 new smiley, 2 new gestures, and three new heart emojis in today's iOS 16.4 beta release. Image: Apple designs / Emojipedia composite.
The new 🫨 Shaking Face emoji can be used to express physical shaking from external forces (such as earthquakes or loud noises) or internal emotion (such as shock, disbelief, or excitement).
The two pushings hands - 🫸 Rightwards Pushing Hand and 🫷 Leftwards Pushing Hand - could be used individually to represent a pushing gesture or a "stop" gesture, or be placed alongside one another to create a new "high five" emoji (maybe even with a 💥 Collision emoji in between them, for added intensity).
Above: the two new pushing hand emojis could be combined to create a distinct "high five" emoji. Image: Apple designs / Emojipedia composite.
Coming to iOS later "this Spring" (northern hemisphere), these updates are in iOS 16.4 beta 1 which is now available for those subscribed to the Apple Developer Program.
Based on past iOS beta history it's likely that the final public release of iOS 16.4 will come to users in March or April 2023.
Late last month Facebook began to roll out support for new emojis such as the 🫨 Shaking Face and the plain 🩷 Pink Heart emoji to its global user base. This rollout continues, with more and more users expected to gain access to these emojis in the coming weeks.
Above: the 31 new emojis that are now rolling out across Facebook. Image: Facebook designs / Emojipedia composite.
A total of 31 new emojis are available for select users of Facebook's website and mobile apps, with all of these new emojis taken from Unicode's 2022 Emoji 15.0 recommendations.
No previously-released emoji designs were revised in this update.
🆕 New
Some of the most notable inclusions in this update to Facebook's emoji support include:
Above: 1 new smiley, 2 new gestures, and three new heart emojis in the latest Facebook emoji update. Image: Facebook designs / Emojipedia composite.
Meanwhile, the new 🫨 Shaking Face emoji could be used to express either a physical shaking from external forces (such as earthquakes or loud noises) or being "shook" as an internal state (such as shock, disbelief, or excitement).
Facebook's support of Emoji 15.0 began its rollout in late February and will become available for a majority of global users in the coming weeks and months.
Users of Facebook and Messenger see these designs on the social network and messaging app across Android and Windows platforms.
iOS users will see Apple's native emoji designs within the Facebook and Messenger mobile apps, though they will see Facebook's design set if accessing Facebook.com or Messenger.com via MacOS.
While also owned by Meta, Instagram uses a device's native emoji designs while WhatsApp uses either iOS emojis or its own custom emoji set depending on the device the platform is being used on.
Today Apple has debuted 31 new emoji designs within its newly-released iOS 16.4 update, finally bringing a plain Pink Heart emoji to iPhones, iPads, and all other Apple devices across the world.
Above: New emojis now available in iOS 16.4. Image: Apple designs / Emojipedia composite.
Each of the 31 new emojis included within iOS 16.4 are from Unicode's Emoji 15.0 recommendations, which were made in September of last year.
These emoji designs were first previewed midway through February this year, within the first beta release of iOS 16.4. Beta updates are made accessible to those signed up for the Apple Developer Program.
Unlike in last year's Apple emoji update, none of the initially revealed emoji designs have undergone revisions ahead of their official release today.
Last year the 🧌 Troll emoji was revised during the iOS 15.4 beta period, while previous beta testing periods featured revisions (or attempted revisions) to the 🥯 Bagel and 🍑 Peach emojis.
Additionally, no previously released emoji designs have been revised in iOS 16.4.
🆕 New
Although iOS 16.4 only includes 31 new emojis, there are emoji additions across each of the major emoji categories.
Firstly, within 😃 Smileys & People there is one new smiley face and two new complimentary hand gestures (both of which support the standard five skin tone modifier options).
Notably, while the designs for each of the skin tone options for 🫸 Rightwards Pushing Hand and 🫷 Leftwards Pushing Hand are visible on Apple devices, the current Apple emoji keyboard does not allow for these skin tone options to be accessed through the usual press-and-hold selection method. This is expected to be resolved in a subsequent iOS update.
The 💕 Symbols category has also received five new additions, three of which are colorful new heart emojis.
Rounding out the new additions in 💕 Symbols category are the 🪯 Khanda, the symbol of the Sikh faith, and a 🛜 Wireless internet connection symbol.
The 🐻 Animals & Nature has received the largest new additions in today's iOS 16.4 release, with six new additions. However, the 🍔 Food & Drink category has also gotten two new emojis that straddle the line between nature and foodstuff, namely a 🫛 Pea Pod and the root from a 🫚 Ginger plant.
Today, we are excited to announce the launch of an exciting new sister app to Emojipedia: AI Art Master. Brought to by Zedge, the parent company of Emojipedia, the AI Art Master app lets you become a visual artist and compete in thrilling battles using the power of artificial intelligence.
Here's how it works: you start by using the app’s AI prompt generator, a powerful tool that suggests ideas to help you create amazingly elaborate images based on the text prompts you provide. These text prompts can also include emojis, meaning the likes of ✨ Sparkles, 🎉 Party Popper, 😍 Smiling Face with Heart-Eyes, and 🥳 Partying Face can be used to help you unleash your creativity and bring it to life through the new AI Art Master app.
That’s not all, however: after you've created an AI art masterpiece, it's time to enter the platform’s art battle arena. There you can compete against people from all around the world and see whose creation reigns supreme. It's like a friendly competition where creativity knows no bounds.
The app also features various galleries where you can showcase your winning artwork from these battles. Choose from various themes like underwater, space, vintage restaurant, amongst many others. It's like having your own virtual art exhibition where people can admire your talent and creations.
If you're ready to embark on an artistic adventure like no other, join in the fun on AI Art Master. Download the app, unleash your creativity, compete with artists from all corners of the globe, and showcase your winning artwork in stunning galleries.
Get ready to experience the excitement of AI Art Master and let your creativity shine - together, let's create a world filled with even more art, imagination, and endless possibilities.
Today Twitter has begun rolling out support for the 2022 emoji list within its classic Twemoji emoji style. The update's 31 new additions include the shaking face, the donkey, and the plain pink heart.
Above: the latest new emojis in Twemoji 15.0. Image: Twitter designs / Emojipedia composite.
This is the first update to Twitter's long-standing Twemoji set since the platform was taken private in October of 2022. All 31 new additions have been drawn from Emoji 15.0, which was recommended by Unicode in September of last year.
No previously-released emoji designs were updated in this release. However, revisions to the 😷 Face with Medical Mask, 🥺 Pleading Face, and 🥹 Face Holding Back Tears emojis have been visible within the Twitter web application's emoji picker tool for several months.
These design changes are assumed to be implemented fully in the near future.
Additionally, at the time of writing users of the Twitter for Android mobile app will not have access to this Twemoji update.
This is because Twitter for Android discontinued its use of Twemoji several months ago, with devices now showing the device's native emoji design set. For Android devices, this will either be the Google Noto Color Emoji set or the Samsung emoji design set, depending on the device manufacturer.
Finally, while today's update adds support for Emoji 15.0 to Twemoji, no further emojis have been made to the glossy emoji sticker set used by the Twitter image editing tool and the Twitter Status feature.
Above: a selection of different emojis as they appear within the Twitter emoji sticker set.
This highly detailed set supports emojis up to 2020's Emoji 13.1 recommendations.
🆕 New
Although this Twemoji update only includes 31 new emojis, there are emoji additions across each of the major emoji categories.
Firstly, within 😃 Smileys & People there is one new smiley face and two new complimentary hand gestures (both of which support the standard five skin tone modifier options).
The 🐻 Animals & Nature has received the largest new additions in today's release, with six new additions. However, the 🍔 Food & Drink category has also gotten two new emojis that straddle the line between nature and foodstuff, namely a 🫛 Pea Pod and the root from a 🫚 Ginger plant.
Twemoji 15.0 designs are now beginning to show for users on the Twitter website, with rollout to further users expected in the coming days and weeks.
As noted above, Twitter for Android users are not expected to receive this update, with Android devices now displaying emojis within their native emoji set.
Twitter for iOS has historically used Apple's native system-wide emojis and is therefore unaffected by this Twemoji update.
Telegram’s animated Telemoji emoji sticker designs are now available to view on Emojipedia.
First launched in August of 2019 with support for just five different emojis, the Telemoji sticker set has grown to include over 600 animated designs with support for emojis from up to September 2021’s Emoji 14.0 recommendations.
Telemoji updates tend to arrive every few months, adding animated sticker support for a small number of additional emojis each time. At the time of writing, the last update was released in March 2023.
Therefore while support for popular Emoji 15.0 recommendations such as 🫨 Shaking Face and 🩷 Pink Heart has yet to be provided by Telegram, they can be expected to be added to the Telemoji set in the near future.
Are these animated Apple emojis?
Yes and no.
The Telemoji sticker designs are heavily based on the Apple emoji design set, which is the default emoji set used by Telegram messenger across all devices and platforms instead of displaying platform-native emojis.
In August 2022, the sticker designs' derivative nature lead to a Telegram for iOS update being held up until the expanded animated Telemoji support was removed from the iOS update.
However, the latest version of Telegram for iOS supports the same set of animated emoji stickers as Telegram for Android, at least when it comes to sending the animations in block sticker format.
How to use an animated Telemoji
The animated Telemoji designs are activated when a user sends a single emoji in a message. If that individual emoji has an equivalent animated Telemoji design, the animated sticker will be sent
Users can tap on the Telemojis to replay their animations, and select Telemojis also have fullscreen “interactive emoji” effects that appear simultaneously for both chat partners when activated.
When sent on their own, emojis that have yet to be given a Telemoji animation will be rendered either in their Apple emoji design or a static version of their animated Telemoji design, which is just subtly different from its Apple design.
This is also the case when multiple emojis are sent side-by-side without any other text, regardless of whether or not one or more of the emojis is supported within the Telemoji set.
The return of animated emojis?
When the first small number of animated Telemoji stickers debuted in August 2019, they could be considered an interesting throwback to a time gone by - specifically, to some of the earliest emoji sets from early 2000s Japan.
Above: Animated emojis in SoftBank's original emoji set. Image: SoftBank / Emojipedia composite.
For example, the first color emoji launched by Softbank in November of 1999 featured a considerable number of animated designs, as did subsequent sets released by both Softbank and au by KDDI.
While Google did create an animated emoji set for Gmail in the late 2000s, the modern emoji sets used by the majority of global emoji users such as those from Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft have until recently always been static in nature.
The only notable exception here is the Skype set of animated emoticons, though these designs were of course limited to use within the Skype platform and implemented by shortcodes instead of being based on Unicode-recommended codepoints or sequences.
Yet since the initial launch of Telemoji, we have seen not just seen the expansion of Telegram's Unicode-based animated emoji set but also the launch of two additional animated emoji sets, namely the 3D animated Fluent set found within Microsoft Teams and the animated version of Google's Noto Color Emoji set which can be found within the Messages by Google mobile app.
At the time of writing, the Microsoft Teams animated 3D Fluent set is the largest animated Unicode-adjacent emoji design set, featuring over 800 different animations. Telegram's Telemoji is the second largest with over 600, followed by the animated Google Noto Color Emoji set with over 300 animations.
The freemium emoji vendor JoyPixels also has an animated subset of its licensable emoji designs available, supporting almost 200 emojis as of September 2020.
There have been reports that WhatsApp is also developing its own set of animated emoji designs for its messaging platform.
Above: an animated 🥳 Partying Face emoji within a beta release of WhatsApp Desktop. Image: WABetaInfo.com.
While the above makes it feel like a new age of widespread animated emojis could be approaching, we shouldn't consider our currently ubiquitously static emoji designs as an endangered species.
Currently, these animations are currently all limited to when a single emoji is sent on its own within the platform. As discussed above, when more than one emoji is sent within a message or an emoji is sent alongside text (as the vast majority of emojis are when used), then a static emoji design will be used instead of an animated sticker design.
This is the case for Microsoft Teams, Messages by Google, and Telegram's Telemoji... with one slight caveat for Telegram Premium users.
Users who opt to pay for Telegram Premium appear to be able to see animated emoji designs within messages, akin to how animated emojis once appeared within the aforementioned Softbank and au by KDDI sets.
These are accessed through the platform's "Custom Animated Emoji" feature, which also appears to support a whole host of non-Unicode-based emoji-esque designs within the body of messages. However, we here at Emojipedia have been unable to replicate the image below within our own version of Telegram.
Even with this apparent support for within-text animation available for Telegram Premium users, we believe that animated emoji sets are still very far from being considered a threat to our long-standing static emoji sets.
Given the manner in which they are currently being implemented across different platforms, animated emoji sets should be considered a new complimentary emoji-based feature, akin to the emoji reactions found across the likes of Facebook and WhatsApp or indeed the Emoji Kitchen sticker tool within Gboard for Android.
Above: emoji mash-up sticker designs within Gboard for Android's Emoji Kitchen feature.
They are not a replacement for our static emoji sets - instead, they're a testament to the emoji keyboard's prominent place within our day-to-day digital communications.
So, while animated emoji sets are indeed a throwback to an emoji time gone by, we're not back to seeing texts like the one shown below. At least not yet, and not without Telegram Premium.
This day next week, Emojipedia will be celebrating two significant milestones: not only will we be hosting our 10th annual World Emoji Day, but July 17 2023 also marks ten years since Emojipedia's founding.
To kick off our celebrations, we've crunched some numbers from Twitter and can reveal a host of emoji insights from across the 10 years since our founder Jeremy Burge sent that first tweet, including announcing a new global peak in emoji usage in 2023.
But first, let's take a step back in time and see what were the most popular emojis in the world when Emojipedia was created in July 2013,
📙 Twitter's Top 10 Emojis: July 2013
So, as shown above, the top emojis on Twitter ten years ago were:
Note that these figures are "per 10,000 tweets". This means that for every 10,000 tweets, 62 contained at least one instance of the 😂 Face with Tears of Joy emoji - or one in every 161 tweets (0.62%).
However, according to our data collected during the early stages of 2023, 😂 Face with Tears of Joy now appears at least once in one in every 45 tweets (2.24%) - an increase of 261.29%. This begs the question - how has overall emoji use increased on Twitter since the founding of Emojipedia?
But over the last 10 years, this has grown exponentially: data collected during March 2023 indicated that almost 27 out of every 100 tweets (26.7%) contained at least one of the now 3,664 emoji characters (as of September 2022's Emoji 15.0 recommendations).
This incredible growth over the last 10 years is charted below, with March 2023 being the highest recorded rate of emoji usage on Twitter: a new record since we here at Emojipedia last reported on Twitter emoji usage ahead of World Emoji Day 2022.
In fact, every month since July 2022 set a brand new all-time record for emoji use on Twitter, as shown above. Furthermore, when you compare January 2013 to March 2023 within the chart above, this shows an overall increase in emoji use of roughly 724%.
😂 Twitter's Top 10 Emojis: 2023
So, with this incredible growth in emoji use over the last 10 years, what are the most popular emojis in the world today? Below is the data we were last able to collect from Twitter during the early months of 2023.
The most popular emojis during the earlier stages of 2023 were as follows:
While the 2023 top 10 shows more variety across different emoji categories, with inclusions from hearts (❤️ Red Heart), gestures (🙏 Folded Hands), and symbols (✨ Sparkles and 🔥 Fire), it's clear that smiley emojis remain the most popular category across the globe.
In fact, the 😭 Loudly Crying Face is now in the distant fifth position, and the once-hotly-tipped🥺 Pleading Face no longer appears within the top ten (according to our data, it has fallen into 15th place). How did this all pan out, both recently, but also over the last 10 years? To answer this, we specifically charted the rise and fall of Twitter's top 10 smiley emojis on a month-by-month basis between March 2013 and March 2023.
💕 Top 10 Emojis Across Categories: 2013-2023
The chart below, showing the top 10 smiley emojis across Twitter over the last 10 years, clearly outlines the extreme dominance of the 😂 Face with Tears of Joy between January 2013 and March 2021, and once again from January 2022 until today.
But while they are the most popular emoji category, we can't let the smileys have all the fun, and so we've also charted the top 10 emojis across the popular heart, gesture, animal, and food & drink emoji categories over the last 10 years also.
As mentioned above, when Emojipedia was founded there were just over 700 emojis recommended for inclusion on our emoji keyboards by Unicode.
Today, there are 3,664 emojis recommended for general interchange (RGI). The increase between October 2010's Unicode 6.0 and September 2022's Emoji 15.0 recommendations is graphed below.
April 2012's Unicode 6.1 was the last update to feature the recommendation of new emoji characters prior to July 2013, with June 2014's Unicode 7.0 being the first new batch of emojis recommended after Emojipedia's launch.
Therefore emojis recommended from Unicode 7.0 onwards are eligible for our review of the most popular new emojis added since July 2013. We've graphed this in two ways below.
First, we've graphed the top 10 most popular emojis added since the founding of Emojipedia on their cumulative use between July 2013 and March 2023.
Unsurprisingly based on what we've seen in our data analyses thus far, the majority of these new emoji designs are smileys. What perhaps was not to be expected was the presence of three emojis added from 2018 onwards - this means of the most popular emojis added since 2013, three reached this cumulative level of popularity at most across the last 5 years.
With this in mind, we reviewed which of the emojis added since July 2013 are the most popular across just 2023 (specifically January to March 2023).
The ❤️ Red Heart emoji is by far and away the most popular of the heart emojis in 2023, followed by the 💙 Blue Heart and the 💕 Two Hearts (the latter of which was the top heart emoji in early 2013).
The 👌 OK Hand emoji was once the most popular gesture emoji on Twitter, but 🙏 Folded Hands and 👍 Thumbs Up are firmly within the #1 and #2 positions today.
🆕 The most popular new emoji added to our emoji keyboards since the founding of Emojipedia, both today and over time, is the 🤣 Rolling on the Floor Laughing emoji. It is also the #2 most popular emoji in the world in 2023.
😃 The top emojis across the globe have become more diverse across emoji categories since July 2013 (now featuring gestures like 🙏 Folded Hands and symbols such as ❤️ Red Heart and ✨ Sparkles), though smiley emojis still make up the majority of the global top 10.
For the last 10 years, we here at Emojipedia have been providing the world with up-to-date and well-researched emoji information.
In doing so, we've spent many a long time researching emoji use across various social networking platforms and documenting an impressive number of emoji-based viral moments- from 🅱️ B Button on Reddit (which didn't quite make our list) to the 🅿️ P Button on Tiktok.
Below we've outlined ten of the most impactful and memorable viral emoji moments across social platforms over the last ten years.
In cataloging these, we've focused on viral memes, trends, and oddities that have featured very specific emoji characters from our emoji keyboards (apologies to emoji pasta memes of the mid-2010s, the "chad" Emojidex TikToks, and the recently viral blue face emoji image).
Signing off with the 🫡 Saluting Face
Starting off with a very recent viral emoji trend from late last year, the 🫡 Saluting Face went viral across Twitter following the news that the microblogging platform would be dramatically reducing its own staff numbers as part of a company-wide restructuring following its acquisition by Elon Musk.
Use of the 🫡 Saluting Face as a means of saying farewell to work colleagues first began within Twitter's internal Slack, before following on to to Twitter itself, with the 🫡 Saluting Face being placed alongside the 💙 Blue Heart emoji.
Today would have been my 9 year work anniversary at Twitter, and instead it’s my first day as a former Tweep. 🐦🫡
While my time at Twitter has just come to an end, I am endlessly grateful for the experience of a lifetime that this little bird afforded me. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/uYnne3ihRL
The surge in use of the 🫡 Saluting Face across Twitter led to it becoming one of our most popular Emojipedia site pages during November, and at the time of writing it remains within our top 30 most popular pages.
In many respect, the viral use of the 🫡 Saluting Face as a sign-off from departing Twitter staff acted as an impossible-to-ignore declaration that a 🫡 Saluting Face emoji was finally on our keyboards.
Added in 2021's Emoji 14.0, the 🫡 Saluting Face had been a long-standing request, appearing in Emojipedia's own 2017 and 2018 top emoji request lists.
Since its viral moment, this emoji has continued to experience considerable global use and was declared the best emoji of 2022 by Rolling Stone Magazine.
🫡 emoji of the year i think. genuinely don’t remember how i used to communicate before it
— Cosmonaut X-Men RPG Truther (@CosmonautMarcus) July 10, 2023
Pushing positivity with the 🅿️ P Button
In January 2022, American rappers Gunna, Future, & Young Thug released a track entitled “pushing P”.
While the phrase has disputed origins and meanings ("keep it real", "player", "paper", "positivity" etc), two things about “pushing P” are undeniable:
the popularity of the track (it debuted at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100)
its impact on the largely ignored 🅿️ P Button emoji
Following the release of the track, the 🅿️ P Button surged in use across both Twitter and Tiktok, with a huge number of the 300k+ Tiktok videos using the “pushin P” sound by the end of January 2022 also featuring the emoji across captions and comments.
Following the release of the track, the 🅿️ P Button surged in use across both Twitter and Tiktok, with a huge number of the 300k+ Tiktok videos using the “pushin P” sound by the end of January 2022 also featuring the emoji across captions and comments.
Today the 🅿️ P Button has returned to relative obscurity, but for a time it was on top of the world.
Requesting reshares with the ♻️ Recycling Symbol
Here's a Twitter-specific viral trend for another largely ignored emoji, this time from late 2016 into early 2018.
Through analyzing Twitter data collected by the Internet Archive, we here at Emojipedia were able to establish that from early 2017 the ♻️ Recycling Symbol began to surge in popularity.
January 2017, it was within the top 10 most-used emojis on the platform, and by September 2017 it was the #2 emoji on the platform.
♻️ Recycling Symbol would remain the #2 emoji on the platform until June 2018, at which time its use completely crashed. So, what happened?
This odd emoji trend was investigated by Emojitracker.com founder Matthew Rothenbergat the time, and through analyzing the tweets featuring the ♻️ Recycling Symbol he discovered there was a uniformity to them: the emoji was being placed at the end of tweets containing quotes from the Quran, the central religious text of Islam.
Roth deduced that the tweets were being created automatically by applications designed to aid in automated posting on behalf of the user and that the use of the ♻️ Recycling Symbol was an attempt at getting other Twitter users to share these Quran verses with their own followers, either via retweets or by signing up to the service.
It can only be assumed that in June 2018 these services were shut down by Twitter, leading to a completely cratering in the use of ♻️ Recycling Symbol on the platform.
Laughing with the 🪑 Chair
From 2017 Twitter to 2021 Tiktok, when it was decided that the 🪑 Chair would be used as a new symbol to convey laughter across the platform.
This stemmed from a viral video by creator Anthony Mai (@blank.antho) in September 2021, in which he declared to his then-over-one-million followers that if you've watched the video, you're now part of an "inside joke" where the 🪑 Chair should be used instead of the 😂 Face with Tears of Joy to convey laughter in emoji form.
This quickly caught on across the platform, with the comment sections of a whole host of viral videos being flooded with 🪑 Chair emojis, with creator KSI also getting involved (though it has been hypothesized that KSI was involved from the early stages).
As intended, this confused millions of Tiktok users yet to see Mai's original video and led some news outlets to speculate as to whether it had a NSFW meaning.
just went on tiktok for the first time in a few weeks, why are the comment sections filled with chair emojis pic.twitter.com/a3qOb031Uz
As tends to happen with these major viral trends, major brand accounts also got involved in the comments.
Ultimately, however, the 🪑 Chair's virality was short-lived, with the emoji's use on the platform winding back within several weeks as the likes of 😭 Loudly Crying Face and 💀 Skull returned to being the top symbols for laughter on the platform.
That doesn't mean that Mai or other Tiktok creators won't try and repurpose another neglected emoji for a further viral trend in the future, however - perhaps 🚡 Aerial Tramway could get another unexpected boost at some point down the line.
Clapping 👏 To 👏 Add 👏 Emphasis 👏
The use of multiple 👏 Clapping Hands emoji in 👏 between 👏 each 👏 word 👏 in 👏 a 👏 sentence dates back to the early 2010s, when emojis were first beginning to explode in popularity within text messages and social media posts.
The emergence of emojis on our digital devices just so happened to coincide with the emergence of what has become known as the "emphasis clap" - the practice of clapping as a way to emphasize talking points.
Sources agree that this practice was initially popularised among African American women way in advance of emojis becoming widespread, but it was picked up by mainstream platforms such as Disney and Comedy Central at the same time as the practice was being "emojified" across the likes of Twitter and Tumblr.
The rise of the emoji-based emphasis clap was also covered in a series of think pieces by the likes of Slate and VICE in 2016 and 2017 respectively.
While this particular use style of the 👏 Clapping Hands emoji has lessened in popularity over the years, the 👏 Clapping Hands emoji itself has remained incredibly popular.
In fact, as of 2023, it's the third most popular gesture emoji, behind only the 🙏 Folded Hands and 👍 Thumbs Up (interestingly, both of these are also two highlydebated emojis).
You can view the historic of the top gesture emojis on Twitter over the last 10 years view the bar chart race below.
This beat-based emphasis format has also been utilized with various other emojis across the likes of Tiktok. For example, ✍️Lesson✍️Pen✍️ emoji format from Tiktok which we document on Emojipedia in January 2021.
It is what it is 👁👄👁
I mean, what more needs to be said? 👁👄👁
Back in the summer of 2020, Silicon Valley investors become highly intrigued by a seemingly secretive new impending tech platform, prompting itself across Twitter with the combination of two 👁️ Eye emojis on either side of a single 👄 Mouth.
This wasn't the first time this unnerving series of emojis were strung together on the platform. As per Know Your Meme, the earliest known example of the 👁👄👁 is from a tweet all the way back in 2015, featuring Backstreet Boys lyrics.
Am I original? Am I the only one? Am ah SEX-U-AAAAAALLL 👁👄👁
Further isolated instances of 👁👄👁 followed over subsequent years.
people in other countries: that church was nearly burnt down in 1315 by a queen who found her husband cheating americans: wow 👁👄👁 that mcdonalds has been there for 30 years
— AMADA 😳Has a friend weeeeee (@AnasApprentice3) May 15, 2020
However, in June 2020 this off-putting emoji combo would become infamous.
Following a huge surge in interest in the 👁👄👁 emoji combo, the Twitter account @itiseyemoutheye began tweeting, and buzz began to surround it within the tech/investment sphere. What was this exactly? It seemed to be an absurdist promotional campaign for a new app launch, at least based on select tweets.
Additionally, the emoji domain 👁👄👁.fm was being shared across social platforms with a cryptic message of "It is what it is" and a request to "give us your info". All the hallmarks of a viral app launch, and as such it received mainstream media coverage.
Later, the site requested that visitors donate to three different US-based charities - namely the Loveland Foundation, The Innocence Project, and The Okra Project, seemingly with the promise of early access to the new platform if receipts were provided to prove that donations were made.
So, in the end, what was it all about? The creators of 👁👄👁.fm put it best themselves within their statement, which we've extracted excerpts from below:
A group of us changed our Twitter names to include 👁👄👁" because we thought it was a funny trend from TikTok.
What started out as a meme in our small group chat grew bigger than we ever imagined. So we thought about how to make use of the hype cycle we’d stumbled upon. But honestly, we didn’t have to think too hard: in this moment, there’s pretty much no greater issue to amplify than the systemic racism and anti-Blackness much of the world is only beginning to wake up to. We’re excited that we could use our newfound platform to drive action towards a few causes that are doing important work towards racial justice: Loveland Foundation Therapy Fund,The Okra Project,The Innocence Project, and others.
We’ve done pretty well for a non-existent product. 👁👄👁.fm was the top product of the day on Product Hunt (Theranos who?). The website accumulated 20,000 email signups and thousands of tweets sharing the link. We were covered in The Independent and Forbes. We got shoutouts from Josh Constine and Brianne Kimmel. Some folks on Reddit puzzled over who we were. Andrew Chen of Andreessen Horowitz, Shannon Purser of Stranger Things, and Elon Musk may have subtweeted us? The @itiseyemoutheye Twitter and accounts of our teammates were inundated with invite requests. Most importantly, we raised over $65,000 in donations from people who signed up for our email list. Two anonymous donors have agreed to match the first $60,000 and $75,000, bringing the total to $200,000.
In conclusion, it is what it is: a meme that leveraged the relentless hype of exclusive apps and redirected it towards a critical social need. Thank you, and remember that unlike 👁👄👁, #BlackLivesMatter and other social movements aren't trends or hype cycles. Let’s keep giving back as best as we can.
It was what it was 👁👄👁
Flagging problems with the 🚩 Triangular Flag
The 🚩 Triangular Flag emoji was amongst the earliest emojis in existence, dating back to late 1990s / early 2000s Japanese emoji sets created by Docomo and au by KDDI.
Rarely used in the decade following its introduction to the Unicode Standard in 2010, when it was it was most frequently associated with golf: a flag-focused version of the ⛳ Flag in Hole emoji, which was also part of some of the earliest Japanese emoji sets by Softbank, Docomo, and au by KDDI.
However, in October 2021 this emoji absolutely explored in popular across Twitter.
The cause of this? A series of viral posts where the 🚩 Triangular Flag's firming uniform color across different emoji vendors was used to channel the idiom of a "red flag" - a statement, behavior, or situation that should be considered a warning sign or a problem by those perceiving or experiencing it.
This term is frequently used to describe a "deal-breaker" behavior of attribute in a romantic partner and as such many of the viral tweets propelling the 🚩 Triangular Flag's new-found popularity reflected this.
“im sorry i hurt u so many times but NOW i wanna make things right” 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩#redflags
Historically speaking, the ✨ Sparkles emoji is one of the most popular emojis across the globe.
Above: ✨ Sparkles emoji as it now appears on major platforms.
Originating from a visual convention in Japanese anime and manga to a sense of beauty, novelty, impressiveness, or, in the case of a character, internal joy or happiness (you can read our deep dive into the ✨ Sparkles emoji here).
However, in 2021 it was propelled into being the world's most popular symbol emoji - ahead of even the ❤️ Red Heart emoji - when it began to be incorporated more and more into a ✨ emphasis-based ✨ meme format that had been bubbling across different social platforms over the previous year or so.
By becoming the go-to emoji to bookend certain words or phrases ✨like this✨ to emphasize them within a sentence, the ✨ Sparkles emoji became a more modern incarnation of how italicization has historically been used in text.
As we noted back in October 2021, TikTok's search results for a single ✨ Sparkles emoji showed how prominent this use case for this emoji had become on the platform.
While ✨ Sparkles-based emphasis can of course be used earnestly, it reached peak virality through its ability to convey a mocking, sarcastic, or negative tone of voice, especially when combined with CHaOTIC cApiTALiZATIon (also known as "SpOnGEbOb teXt") or indeed a d d i n g s p a c e s between the letters of certain words.
Indeed, the association between ✨ Sparkles and the SpOnGEbOb text has also likely led the emoji to be frequently used to indicate irony, sarcasm, or humor when bookending text even without the alternating capitalization.
Another string of three emojis is our penultimate viral emoji moment of the last 10 years, though the vital element here is the 🥺 Pleading Face emoji which was added to our emoji keyboards in 2018's Emoji 11.0 recommendations.
In fact, the 🥺 Pleading Face emoji is probably the most successful emoji of the last five years: a mere two years following its inclusion in our emoji keyboards, this emoji had skyrocketed to being the #3 emoji in the world between March 2020 and September 2021.
This was largely down to it being combined with the 👉 Backhand Index Pointing Right and 👈 Backhand Index Pointing Left - which, when combined, created an emoji version of a gesture that had begun to gain peak popularity amongst Gen Z in early 2020.
Additionally, Tiktoks such as one shown below began to speak across Tiktok - featuring the two fingers touching gesture alongside the 🥺 Pleading Face emoji and the term "simp".
Swiftly the puppy-dog-eyed 🥺 Pleading Face emoji became synonymous with the concept of "simping": to show excessive sympathy and attention toward another person with whom you desired an affectionate or a sexual relationship, most frequently when that other person does not reciprocate those same feelings.
Like with the ✨ Sparkles emoji discussed above, 🥺 Pleading Face remains popular but has experienced a considerable decline in usage in recent years. In fact, despite at one time being the #3 emoji in the world, it is no loner amongst the world's top 10 emojis in 2023.
#BlackLivesMatter ✊🏼✊🏾✊🏿
We close out our list with an emoji viral trend with an incredibly important political issue at its center.
In fact, the combination of the three ✊ Raised Fist emojis with skin tone modifiers such as ✊🏼✊🏾✊🏿 has since become a popular emoji combination for conveying interracial solidarity
In fact, before we wrap this rundown of the our most memorable viral emoji moments of the last 10 years, we must given an honorable mention to both the 🦠 Microbe the 😷 Face with Medical Mask emojis.
Their viral moment may have burned out long before the end of the pandemic, but for a brief spell in March 2020 they were the only emoji anyone wanted to talk about.
We here at Emojipedia are excited to announce a new site redesign as part of our 10th annual World Emoji Day celebrations and our site's 10th anniversary.
This redesign adds a host of new emoji exploration features to our unrivaled archive of emoji information and designs compiled over the last 10 years. The redesign also makes improvements to our emoji search results, our emoji copy function, and our overall site loading times.
Our core emoji pages have been redesigned to place both the copy function and emoji information content side-by-side, allowing swift access to both simultaneously.
The copy function can be activated either by clicking the "Copy" button or clicking the emoji character itself.
We've also added a quick-to-use skin tone variation tool underneath supported people and gesture emojis, such as the 🫶 Heart Hands shown below.
There's also a "Goes Great With" section for each emoji, prominently displaying both individual emojis and emoji-based events and topics that compliment the emoji you're presently viewing.
Additionally, we have now grouped an emoji's history designs and its technical information within their own dedicated in-window tabs on each emoji page.
Selecting 'Emoji Designs' will show you an improved display of that emoji's designs not just across different vendors like Apple, Google, and Microsoft, but also across different vendor updates where that emoji was added or updated.
Above: the segment of 'Emoji Designs' tab for the 💀 Skull emoji page, showing designs on Apple and Google emoji sets over time.
Each vendor's historic updates can be scrolled through using the within-row arrows.
Meanwhile, selecting "Technical Information" will show a host of additional information related to that emoji.
📜 Highlighting Emoji History
In addition to revising how we display an individual emoji's historic designs, we've also added a new site feature to allow our users to better explore different vendor updates from the likes of Apple and Google, as well as all of the historic emoji recommendations lists from Unicode.
Introducing our new timeline tabs feature.
Above: the new timeline tabs feature on Emojipedia, placed below our search bar.
This timeline will appear on site pages dedicated to:
Emoji vendor overviews and updates (e.g. Android 8.0),
So, the notches on the timeline shown each represent an update to the Google Noto Color Emoji set that is available within the Emojipedia archives (plus a bonus animated Gmail set from 2008).
This feature will allow our users to swiftly jump from the likes of Apple's latest iOS 16.4 designs back to their 2017's iOS 11.1 update (when 🤩 Star-Struck and 🤨 Face with Raised Eyebrow were first added), or even further back still to their original 2008 set on iPhone OS 2.2.
Above: emoji designs from Apple's first-ever emoji set as they appear on Emojipedia's redesigned iPhone OS 2.2 site page.
🎲 Improving Search & Rolling The Dice
A small but simple change we've made to our site is that we've made our "Random" feature more prominent by placing it within the right-hand corner of our sticky search bar, represented by the 🎲 Game Die emoji.
Selecting this will take you to a random emoji page from across the Emojipedia archives, allowing you to elegantly careen through the depths of our emoji archives from any point across the site.
We've also made considerable backend improvements to how our search functionality operates, leading you to your desired emoji even more swiftly.
📋 Cleaning Lists & Adding Categories
Our category, events and topic pages have also undergone a visual transformation, with emojis now displayed in a compact grid format instead of over-long lists.
Hovering over an emoji character shown in this new grid display will show additional information about that emoji within a small pop-out window.
Selecting that emoji character will of course then take you to the emoji's emoji meaning page as always (so the 🐱 Cat Face is likely about to be visited in the image above).
Additionally, emoji category pages now include a selection of subcategory filters, such as those shown below for the 🍔 Food & Drink category page.
Selecting these with jump you to the area on a category page at which emoji's within that particular subcategory are grouped.
A similar categorization feature has also been added to our vendor pages, allowing you to quickly view designs from different categories.
💻 Release
The new and improved Emojipedia.org website is currently rolling out progressively to a proportion of our global audience, with a majority of users expected to see the new site design by World Emoji Day 2023 (July 17).
A Lime, a Head Shaking Vertically, and a Phoenix Bird emoji are amongst the draft emoji candidates up for approval by Unicode this September, as well as a selection of new direction-based people emojis. Ahead of World Emoji Day 2023, we here at Emojipedia have created sample designs for the new candidate emojis.
Like the recommendations from 2019's Emoji 12.1 and 2020's Emoji 13.1, each of these draft emojis candidates are to be constructed via zero-width joiner (ZWJ) sequences, utilizing previously-existing emojis to construct a new design and concept.
As such, it is expected that you'll see each of the new emojis listed below represented by two or more existing designs.
The only exceptions here are the various new family emojis on Microsoft devices, as these have been supported in non-silhouette form for several years.
While it is the intention of Unicode that these new family emojis will be added to our emoji keyboards in a manner reminiscent of the existing 👤Bust in Silhouette and 👥Busts in Silhouette emojis, it ultimately will come down to each emoji vendor (Apple, Google, Samsung, etc) as to whether or not they follow this design directive.
As well as the ten emoji concepts listed above, the Emoji 15.1 candidate list also contains directional versions of six different types of person emojis (for a total of 108 new emojis when you include skin tone modifier and gender variants).
These new direction-specifying emojis are all versions of pre-existing people emojis (e.g. 🏃 Person Running), but with the addition of explicitly-stated directionality (e.g. 🏃➡️ Person Running Facing Right).
Each of these directional people emojis will be created through the use of the ➡️ Right Arrow emoji to construct new direction-specifying sequences, meaning that all 108 of these new emoji designs will be facing rightwards.
A sample of how these emojis may look within Apple's emoji set are shown below, with these possible designs created by inverting emojis from the existing Apple set.
Above: a series of inverted Apple emoji designs, which may be how the new direction-specifying people emojis in the draft Emoji 15.1 list will be implemented on Apple devices.
We discuss these direction-based emoji recommendations from Emoji 15.1 further below.
🎨 Are these the final emojis?
No, not exactly.
To be clear, the Emojipedia Sample Images shown within the images are just one way in which these emojis might look, created by Emojipedia's Head of Emoji Design Joshua Jones.
Our Emojipedia Sample Images have intentionally been created in a glossy style directly inspired by the Apple emoji set, which is why we opted to reverse Apple's existing people designs for our overview image above.
2023 is actually our ninth year of providing sample emoji designs ahead of their official arrival on emoji keyboards - we first began back in 2015 with sample designs for the 🌭 Hot Dog, 🌮 Taco, and 🌯 Burrito emojis.
Additionally, Apple and other vendors may opt for unique designs for each of the new direction-specifying people emojis, instead of simply inverting their existing designs as we have done above for illustrative purposes.
Unicode has also previously provided its own sample set of designs for each of the new non-directional additions. These have been made in the Google Noto Color Emoji style.
It is not guaranteed, however, that these designs will match the emoji designs that will eventually roll out on Android devices via the Google Noto Color Emoji font.
As always, actual vendor designs will vary from those released by major vendors, and Emojipedia's own sample images may also be updated when the final version of Emoji 15.1 is released in September.
Additionally, as this is only a draft emoji list, each emoji is subject to change prior to final approval in September 2023.
That being said, changes to the final draft list have not occurred in recent years, with each of the emojis we've previewed since 2019 all being incorporated into the final list of recommendations.
As touched upon above, the Emoji 15.1 draft list contains a total of 108 proposed emoji sequences that specify directionality. These are all based on six existing person emojis, listed below:
But of course, many more emojis than just these contain directionality within their designs.
Indeed, selecting an orientation for a person, object, or symbol to be represented by an emoji is a necessity for emoji designs when they are seeking to best exemplify an emoji's intended concept. This is especially true considering the diminutive size at which we view most emoji designs in our day-to-day lives.
Shown below are several emojis within the Apple emoji set that don't have an explicitly recommended direction for them to be facing, but the Apple emoji design team has nonetheless chosen to orient these emojis in a certain manner to allow for comprehensible emoji design.
Above: a series of Apple emoji designs that depict their subject matter facing leftwards.
Viewing the image above, it is clear that Apple's emoji designs default to orient emojis to be facing left if directionality is desired but not required within Unicode's recommendations.
Two contexts where directionality is clearly desired is when movement (actual or potential) is being implied as part of an emoji's design (e.g. 🏃 Person Running and 🏊 Person Swimming) and when there is a need to display a full-bodied creature or object (e.g. 🚂 Locomotive and 🐅 Tiger), though there are some exceptions
In fact, this has historically been the case for almost all emoji vendors, with a handful of expectations over the years (such as the 🤾 Person Playing Handball with the Apple set, and most recently the Korean fintech platform Toss' Toss Face emoji set, which orients these same emojis facing right).
While emoji directionality has been an area of consideration for the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee for many years, if the 108 new direction-focused emojis within the draft Emoji 15.1 listed are approved in September, they would be the first full-bodied people emojis to have an explicitly-stated direction from Unicode.
Below is the full list of the 108 new direction-specifying emojis included within the Emoji 15.1 draft list.
If this initial batch of direction-focused people resonates strongly with emoji users across the globe, it must be assumed that further direction-specifying sequences will be recommended for further people emojis (such as 🏊 Person Swimming, ⛹️ Person Bouncing Ball, and 🤺 Person Fencing) and other emojis across additional categories.
Additional (Draft) Observations
Two ZWJ components are reborn anew
🐦🔥 Phoenix Bird marks the second time both of its constituent emojis have been used in the construction of a new ZWJ sequence.
For example, while a nodding head such as intended to be depicted in the 🙂↕️ Head Shaking Vertically emoji is a positive "yes" in the United States, in Bulgaria it conveys a negative "no" meaning.
Color Options Leave The Animal Kingdom
Emoji 15.1's 🍋🟩 Lime and 🍄🟫 Brown Mushroom emoji candidates are the first time a non-animal emoji has been given a specific color-based variation within the emoji keyboard.
However, they support them using full-bodied people emoji designs, instead of silhouettes. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft updates these specific family emoji designs in the future to match the silhouette-based proposal, or if other vendors alternatively design to follow Microsoft's lead and create detailed gender-neutral family emoji designs.
How Will We Orientate Anyway?
At the time of writing it is currently unknown as to how our emoji keyboards will accommodate the first batch of direction-explicit people emojis if approved in September.
Nevertheless, we can make some assumptions based on how Apple and Android devices have dealt with skin tone options and gender variations over the years.
Most likely Apple will attempt to have a push-and-hold mechanism that will allow the user to select the gender, direction, and skin tone of the emoji in a single pop-up window (i.e. displaying just 🏃 Person Running within the base keyboard).
So, when can you get these 118 new emojis on your iPhone, Pixel, or other devices and platforms? There are two parts to this:
As we've emphasized above, it is yet to be confirmed which emojis are in the final version of Emoji 15.1 - this is still a draft list. However, based on recent years, the final version is likely to mirror this draft list. This means that no new emojis will be added at this stage, though there is a very slight chance that a draft emoji candidate is changed or removed ahead of September.
Release dates for emoji support always vary by the operating system, app, or device.
With those two things in mind, here's our estimated timeline for Emoji 15.1's approval and release across major emoji vendors.
Expect to see some companies come out with early emoji support in late 2023, and the majority of updates to take place in the first half of 2024.
For reference, here's when each major vendor began to support (or began to preview) Emoji 15.0 recommendations:
At the time of writing Microsoft has yet to provide support for Emoji 15.0 for all users, though they have been in beta for Windows 11 Insiders since early June.
Above: Microsoft's support for Emoji 15.0, which is currently in beta for Windows 11.
However, the above schedule does not provide the full picture. For example, while the Google Noto Color Emoji designs were made available in September 2022, they did not begin to appear across the majority of Android devices until early 2023.
Additionally, Samsung was uncharacteristically early in providing support to 2022' Emoji 15.0 mere months after it was approved by Unicode, but this support was provided at the same time as they introduced their support for the 2021's Emoji 14.0 list - a full 13 months after it was approved.
So, what can we say with confidence when it comes to the emoji release schedule? The following:
Select Android devices and Google platforms (Gmail, YouTube, etc) may well receive Emoji 15.1 support in late 2023, but there is no guarantee.
Apple devices are most likely to receive Emoji 15.1 support in spring (northern hemisphere) 2024.
In any case, here's hoping that the 🐦🔥 Phoenix Bird emoji will be gracing the skies of our global emoji keyboards sooner rather than later.
In the 10 years since Emojipedia first began documenting global emoji use back in 2013, we've seen many of the world's most well-known personalities become strongly associated with specific emojis, both fleetingly or substantially.
As part of celebrations of both our 10th anniversary and our 10th annual World Emoji Day, we've listed what we believe to be some of the ten most memorable associations between celebrities and our emoji keyboards that have occurred since Emojipedia's founding in July 2013.
We start our list with a recent example of a major celebrity-emoji association, and one that also featured within our breakdown of favorite viral emoji moments of the last 10 years.
In January 2022, American rapper Gunna released a track entitled pushing P on from his third album, DS4Ever.
The track, which also featured fellow rappers Future and Young Thug, became a viral sensation across social media, with a whole host of posts about the nebulous concept of "pushing P" featuring the 🅿️ P Button emoji, including both brands and celebrities (you can read more about this here).
The viral success of pushing P and its association with the 🅿️ P Button emoji actually led to Gunna getting Apple's 🅿️ P Button design tattooed on his left arm, as shared on his Instagram story back in February 2022.
Canadian rapper Drake has a long-standing love of owls. From its launch in 2011, his “October’s Very Own” clothing brand (usually abbreviated to "OVO") features an owl as its logo, and as of late 2018 the performer has an owl-based tattooed across his chest
Given this long-standing association, Drake fans have been using the 🦉 Owl emoji to discuss Drake and his music as early as 2014.
This association has continued, with the 🦉 Owl being used to represent Drake as part of the promotional campaign of his late 2022 collaboration album with 21 Savage.
There is, however, an additional emoji that Drake became more fleetingly associated with the year prior to the release of Her Loss.
The album cover for his 2021 effort Certified Lover Boy featured twelve instances of the🤰 Pregnant Woman emoji - specifically, modified versions of Apple's🤰 Pregnant Woman emoji designs across different skin tones.
This choice of album cover was largely poorly received, even amongst fans who had embraced Drake's use of the 🦉 Owl emoji.
The album cover was also made fun of in a promotional post by known emoji enthusiast Lil Nas X (who we'll be speaking about more later on this list), with the 🤰 Pregnant Woman emojis replaced with 🫃 Pregnant Man emojis.
The youngest individual on our list by a considerable distance, the eldest child of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West is already cultivating a strong emoji association for herself.
For North West's 8th birthday in June 2021, her mother Kim orchestrated an all-out 💩 Pile Of Poo emoji themed event, featuring the 💩 Pile Of Poo design in the form of bags, balloons, and full-body costumes.
Images of various 💩 Pile Of Poo emoji paraphrenia can be seen in this video by E! News on YouTube.
Stephen Colbert: 🤨 Face with Raised Eyebrow
It's fair to say that American late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert is an emoji fan.
During his tenure hosting The Late Show, he has covered a variety of emoji-based news stories, with recent examples including recent humorous discussions of the 🫠 Melting Face emoji, the 🤏 Pinching Hand emoji, and the release of non-gender-specific people emojis.
This is unsurprising, given the fact that while it was a draft candidate for Unicode 10.0 the 🤨 Face with Raised Eyebrow emoji was being dubbed "the Colbert Emoji" by then Unicode President Mark Davis.
New emoji candidates >2016: DUMPLING, FORTUNE COOKIE, TAKEOUT BOX, CHOPSTICKS, & FACE WITH ONE EYEBROW RAISED (IMO, the Colbert emoji)
Amusingly, the original proposal for the 🤨 Face with Raised Eyebrow emoji made no reference to Colbert - instead, the expression was directly inspired by Maggie Smith's character in Downton Abbey, as discussed here by Time Magazine.
Nevertheless, the term "Colbert Emoji" caught on, likely in part thanks to this Time Magazine article. News of it reached Colbert himself, leading to an entire dedicated segment on the emoji candidate in early 2016.
While Colbert has the 🤨 Face with Raised Eyebrow emoji, other late-night talk show hosts have yet to be so lucky.
Since Jimmy Kimmel has been campaigning for a meatball emoji, this far without success.
Back in late 2016, Kimmel made a direct plea to Jenny 8. Lee, a member of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee and founder of Emojination, going so far as to have his colleague Guillermo Rodriguez appear in a meatball emoji costume.
Following the release of the 🧆 Falafel emoji, Kimmel and Guillermo further decried the lack of a meatball emoji, this time involving the people of New York and Emojipedia's own sample design for 🧆 Falafel.
DJ Khalid: 🔑 Key
Image: They Don't Want You To Win/George Kedenburg III
During the height of his popularity back in 2015, DJ Khalid began using his Snapchat profile to share nuggets of wisdom and life advice with his followers.
Throughout this advice, Khalid detailed what we perceived to be "major keys to success" in life, frequently using the 🔑 Key emoji to emphasize a "major 🔑" or a new "🔑 to success".
Above: an image of DJ Khalid's Snapchat profile in January 2016, prominently featuring the 🔑 Key emoji. Image: Tech Insider
This led to others using the 🔑 Key emoji in this fashion, including several brands.
Major 🔑 alert: Invest where your competition isn't and you'll have a better chance to differentiate.
In fact, Khlaid's use of the 🔑 Key emoji in this fashion led to our own Emojipedia page for this emoji to receive an 800% increase in global traffic in December 2015.
This is a less-than-savory emoji association from back in 2016, but one that Taylor Swift ultimately used to her advantage as part of her promotional campaign for her 2017 Reputation album.
In June 2016, Swift was subject to much 🐍 Snake-based harassment on Instagram. The comments on all of her posts were completely spammed with multiple instances of the 🐍 Snake emoji, as shown below.
This first occurred following a dispute between Swift and former romantic partner Calvin Harris aired on Twitter, but gained additional traction when Kim Kardashian weighed in on the spamming to reignite an ongoing dispute between Swift and Kardashian's then-husband Kanye West.
Wait it's legit National Snake Day?!?!?They have holidays for everybody, I mean everything these days! 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍
Such was the level of 🐍 Snake emoji spam on Swift's profile that Instagram quickly began to limit the ability of users to post this emoji on her profile.
The same 🐍 Snake emoji spam limitation was later applied to Kim Kardashian's own Instagram profile in August 2017, when Swift's fanbase wished to return the favor following Swift's leaning-in t0 snake-based imagery on the platform.
This very public dispute is now thankfully long since past, and Swift is more likely to be associated with emojis that can be used to make reference to her songs and their lyrics - take, for example, how the 🧣 Scarf spiked in use following the release of the 10-minute-long version of 'All Too Well' back in November 2021.
Various Sports Stars: 🐐 Goat
Across various domains, but in particular sports, many individuals have been referred to as being "the greatest of all time". This phase has famously been shortened to the acronym "G.O.A.T" over the years, and become in the digital age has become synonymous with the 🐐 Goat emoji.
This has been especially true on Twitter, thanks in part to certain sports stars' own self-promotion on the platform.
Take, for example, Michael Jordan - widely considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time - staking his claim to the title with the 🐐 Goat emoji on the platform back in 2015.
While the platform's NBA fans may not agree with Jordan's claim to being the greatest NBA player of all time (this 2021 study found the phrase more likely to be associated with Bill Russell or LeBron James), Jordan's social team has continued to leverage the 🐐 Goat for promotional purposes.
For example, a hashflag design based on the 🐐 Goat emoji was added to the #TheLastDance hashtag on Twitter as part of the marketing campaign for the 2020 documentary series' The Last Dance, which focused on Jordan and Chicago Bulls during the 1990s.
This design featured the number 23 - the number of Jordan's jersey with the Chicago Bulls between May 1995 and June 1998.
Additionally, at the time of writing the profile image of the @TwitterSports account features the silhouette of a 🐐 Goat emoji and the profile's header image features Jordan.
A similar hash flag was also used for American artistic gymnast Simone Biles, also often called the GOAT in her discipline, during the Tokyo Olympics hosted in 2021. It appeared alongside both #SimoneBiles and #Simone.
In terms of American football, during Super Bowl LV back in February 2021, Twitter also launched a hash flag featuring two 🐐 Goat emojis - one for Tampa Bay Buccaneers veteran quarterback Tom Brady, and one for Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Despite Mahomes inclusion in this hash flag, Brady's association with the 🐐 Goat emoji had been permanently solidified two years prior.
In 2019, research conducted by The Wall Street Journal found that, despite Micahel Jordan's embrace of the emoji, Brady was the real GOAT across all sports when it came to the use of the 🐐 Goat emoji.
The most tweets with a 🐐 came after the Patriots came back against the Falcons in the Super Bowl. The second most: when the Patriots beat the Chiefs in the AFC Championship.
Most recently, Twitter has also honored tennis star Serena Williams with her own 🐐 Goat emoji hash flag during her participation in her final U.S. Open before retirement.
23 grand slams. 4 gold medals. 27 years of dominance
In late 2018, the aspiring rapper Montero Lamar Hill (better known as Lil Nas X) released the first version of what would soon become the most successful song in the history of the Billboard Top 100: Old Town Road.
The song quickly gained popularity on Tiktok as part of the "Yeehaw Challenge", often being posted with a 🤠 Cowboy Hat Face emoji as part of the video or caption.
An association was born - one that Lil Nas X himself would lean into in a big way over the coming year by embracing a meme that first began in 2017: the sad cowboy emoji.
Soon after the release of the remix of Old Town Road featuring Billy Ray Cyrus was released in April 2019, Lil Nas X began to share a mashed-up emoji design across his social media: a combination of Apple's 🤠 Cowboy Hat Face and 😔Pensive Face emoji designs.
While it's unclear as to when Lil Nas X became familiar with the sad cowboy emoji meme, it's undeniable that he swiftly became its biggest champion throughout 2019 as Old Town Road began its record-breaking chart dominance.
As well as championing a sad version of the 🤠 Cowboy Hat Face emoji, Lil Nas X would also release an official Animoji-based music video Old Town Road.
As well as celebrate the arrival of the Emoji Kitchen on Gboard in February 2020, despite it being an Android-exclusive feature he wouldn't be able to access on his Apple device.
The penultimate entry on our list is another long-standing emoji association: "Queen Bey" Beyonce and the 🐝 Honeybee emoji used by the "beyhive" (or sometimes just "the Hive").
The term "beyhive" was initially popularized by Beyonce fans in 2011 as an alternative to the term "Beyontourage" previously used by Beyonce himself. However, "beyhive" was quickly embraced by the singer, dubbing herself "The Queen Bey" and launching a dedicated Beyhive section of her website in 2012 describing different personalities amongst the fandom, including "the honeybees".
At some point between 2012 and 2014 the Beyonce fandom adopted the 🐝 Honeybee emoji as their own, as in early 2015 born witness to the first documented instance of the Beyhive deploying 🐝 Honeybee emoji spam on social platforms.
This type of use of the 🐝 Honeybee emoji by the Beyhive has been documented several times since, including in 2017 against Emma Waston.
Perhaps the biggest surge in global 🐝 Honeybee emoji usage came in 2016, following the release of Beyonce's six studio album Lemonade. Such was the enthusiasm amongst the beyhive that both the 🐝 Honeybee and 🍋 Lemon Emoji surged in popularity on Twitter.
The 💜 Purple Heart was found to be amongst the most popular on the platform throughout 2020, largely fuelled by one particular demographic: fans of the k-pop group Bangtan Sonyeondan, more commonly known as BTS.
When we looked at the top 200 terms most commonly used alongside the 💜 Purple Heart, we found that:
"BTS" was the 7th most popular associated term, of course referring to the band itself
"Army" was the 8th most popular term, referring the official name of the BTS fandom, the BTS A.R.M.Y.
I ended up learning ✨a lot✨ about @bts_bighit while working on this latest piece for @Emojipedia 💜 You never know what rabbit holes emoji data analysis will take you down 🐰🕳️ https://t.co/8JiH5F7pp0
So, how did this association between the 💜 Purple Heart emoji and BTS begin?
Most sources trace it back to November 2016, when band member V (real name Kim Taehyung) first said "I purple you" while purple light covered the audience at the third annual official fan meeting (called "the muster"). He followed this up with "Purple is the last color of the rainbow colors, so it means I will trust and love you for a long time."
'Purple is the last color of the rainbow colors so it means i will trust and love u for a long time' - Taehyung 🐯💜 pic.twitter.com/5A22zMKflm
Despite V immediately admitting that they had made up that statement on the spot, a connection between the affection and the color purple was permanently forged for BTS fans, making the 💜 Purple Heart emoji the perfect symbol to encapsulate the statement "I purple you."
That concludes the respective list of our most memorable celebrity-emoji associations of the last ten years. For all your support, we certainly purple you 💜
Happy World Emoji Day 2023 - our 10th annual World Emoji Day celebration and Emojipedia 10th birthday! 🌎📅🥳
Here's a quick rundown of what's been happening as part of the global 2023 celebration - our biggest yet!
🆕 New Emojis
Emoji 15.1 is due for approval this September, and as is now tradition we here at Emojipedia have revealed our sample images showing examples of what might be on phones in 2023-2024.
Emoji 15.1 is to be released in September 2023 and will likely include a Phoenix, a Lime, two shaking heads, and many direction-specific people emojis
Earlier today The New York Stock Exchange welcomed Zedge (NYSE American: ZDGE) - a global leader in creating platforms for digital self-expression (including Emojipedia!) to celebrate World Emoji Day.
To honor the occasion, Howard Jonas (our Vice Chairman) and Michael Jonas (our Executive Chairman) rang the famed Opening Bell.
As part of World Emoji Day 2023, Zedge is contributing to those in need by partnering with Conscious Alliance, a United States-based nonprofit hunger relief organization that unifies bands, brands, artists, and fans to collectively support communities in crisis.
Telegram’s animated Telemoji emoji sticker designs are now available to view on Emojipedia. First launched in August of 2019 with just five emojis, the set has grown to over 600 animated designs.
For another year running, we're delighted to announce that global emoji use is at a record-breaking rate, with over 26% of all tweets containing at least one emoji in 2023.
We also graphed the top emojis across different popular categories, such as the smiley emojis shown below.
As part of #WorldEmojiDay and our 10th birthday celebrations on Monday, we've outlined some of the most prominent celebrity-emoji associations of the last decade 🤠💜https://t.co/3TjTEKpsJr
The 🤣 Rolling on the Floor Laughing emoji has received this year's Lifetime Achievement Award for being the most popular new emoji added over the last 10 years, as well as being the #2 emoji in the world in 2023.
This emoji, with its distorted smile, has a sarcastic charm you all clearly love.
It's used literally to talk about extreme heat, and metaphorically for embarrassing moments, such as shame, dread, or feeling overwhelmed. pic.twitter.com/MAsouPh6iX
— World Emoji Awards 🗳🌍🏆 (@EmojiAwards) July 17, 2023
👀 More on World Emoji Day
To see even more of what's been happening, check out the #WorldEmojiDay hashtag on your social platform of choice. Here are just some examples of all the fun different people and businesses have been having as part of our global celebrations!
Can you have a conversation with a friend in only emoji?
JoyPixels have released version 8.0 of their freemium emoji set, introducing support for the 2022 emoji list including the 🩷 Pink Heart and 🫨 Shaking Face emojis.
All of the 32 new emojis included in JoyPixels 8.0 are drawn from September 2022's Emoji 15.0 recommendations.
Additionally, over 500 different emoji designs have been revised in this update. These revisions include reworking the majority of emojis within the 🐻 Animals & Nature and 🚀 Travel & Places categories, as well as revising a series of subtle color tweaks to many prominently black emoji designs to improve their compatibility with devices running in dark mode.
Such large-scale revisions have been a hallmark of JoyPixels' updates dating back the when the vendor used the name EmojiOne.
🆕 New
Although JoyPixels 8.0 contains just 31 new emojis, there are emoji additions across each of the major emoji categories.
Firstly, within 😃 Smileys & People there is one new smiley face and two new complimentary hand gestures (both of which support the standard five skin tone modifier options).
The 🐻 Animals & Nature has received the largest new additions in today's release, with six new additions.
Additionally, the 🍔 Food & Drink category has two new emoji additions that straddle the line between nature and foodstuff: a 🫛 Pea Pod and the root from a 🫚 Ginger plant.
The 🚺 Women’s Room symbol is now featured on a pink background.
📶 Release
JoyPixels 8.0 is available now. Like previous JoyPixels updates, it is available on a freemium basis, with licensing required for some but not all usage types.
The latest list of emoji recommendations drafted by the Unicode Consortium - Emoji 15.1 - has been formally approved. This means that 118 new emojis should be arriving across our various digital devices over the next year or so.
Emoji 15.1 has been formally approved alongside today's release of version 15.1 of the Unicode Standard, the Unicode Consortium's core text encoding standard that is designed to support the use of text written in all of the world's major writing systems.
The Unicode Consortium is the non-profit standards body responsible for the Unicode Standard. Voting members include Apple, Google, and Microsoft.
🆕 New Emojis in Emoji 15.1
These 118 new emojis introduced in Emoji 15.1 include six completely new concepts, four new gender-neutral family emoji combinations, and 108 new direction-specifying versions of six pre-existing people emojis.
Example color images are commonly shown on pages of new emoji information by Unicode and come from various sources. These are intended to convey the preferred design choices for vendors when implementing emojis.
The six completely new emoji concepts within Emoji 15.1 are:
Each of these new direction-specifying people emojis support the usual gender and skin tone variation sequences, making up a total of 108 new direction-specific people emoji designs in Emoji 15.1.
Unicode Version 15.1 will include 118 new RGI #emoji ZWJ sequences, 108 of which are directional variants of existing emoji, and are expected to start showing up on 📱s, 💻s, and other platforms sometime early next year → https://t.co/ooTcjrayiF#絵文字#Unicode15_1pic.twitter.com/b2OgM5StR1
This means that no changes have been made to the draft emoji list since we here at Emojipedia previewed the Emoji 15.1 draft list ahead of our 10th annual World Emoji Day celebration this July.
Emoji 15.1 is to be released in September 2023 and will likely include a Phoenix, a Lime, two shaking heads, and many direction-specific people emojis
This means that each of these new emojis is based on combining pre-existing emoji characters or sequences to be represented with a new unique emoji design.
As of Emoji 15.1, there are now a total of 3,782 emojis recommended by Unicode.
However, while Emoji 15.1 contains brand-new emojis, since these are all constructed via ZWJ sequences, Unicode 15.1 did not require any brand-new emoji characters to enable the creation of Emoji 15.1.
This means that Unicode 15.1 is the first update to the Unicode Standard to not feature the creation of any new emoji characters since May 2019's Unicode 12.1 - a minor update to the standard that added just a single new non-emoji character to enable software to be rapidly updated to support the new Japanese era name in calendrical systems and date formatting
Prior to Unicode 12.1, new emoji characters had been added to every update to the Unicode Standard from 2014's Unicode 7.0 onwards.
Despite not containing any new emoji characters, Unicode 15.1 does induce several hundred new non-emoji characters to the Unicode Standard.
🔡 New Characters in Unicode 15.1
The vast majority of characters in the Unicode Standard are not emojis. Emoji updates are given priority here at Emojipedia, but it's worth taking a moment to look at some of the other new characters approved in this release.
Regarding this update, Unicode notes that:
Unicode 15.1 adds 627 characters, for a total of 149,813 characters.
To put it in perspective, the total number of emoji characters and sequences that are recommended for general interchange (RGI) is 3,782 in Unicode 15.1, compared to the 149,813 characters across the entire updated version of the Unicode Standard.
The characters in the Extension I block have been deemed to be very urgently needed for use in China. The Extension I proposal was based on characters that appeared in a draft amendment of China’s mandatory GB 18030 standard. For this reason, the Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) considered it imperative to arrive at a stable encoding for these characters as quickly as possible.
The GB 18030 is a Chinese government standard that defines the required language and character support necessary for software in China.
The release of Emoji 15.1 does not mean users can immediately access or use any new emoji from this list.
What today's release from the Unicode Consortium does indicate is when major vendors such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, or Samsung can implement these new emojis in their software.
Expect to see some companies come out with early emoji support throughout the remainder of 2023, and the majority of updates to take place in the first half of 2024.
Last year, Google revealed its designs for Emoji 15.0 immediately following the release of Unicode 15.0 and Emoji 15.0 via its GitHub page and through downloadable font files.
Swiftly after @unicode approved Emoji 15.0 earlier today, @Google revealed a bonanza of new emoji features 🤯
These included support for the 31 newly-recommended emojis in both of their Noto Emoji fonts, plus a brand new animated Noto Emoji subset 🎨
These designs would then begin to appear progressively across select Google platforms such as Chrome OS, Gmail, and YouTube between September 2022 and their release within Android 13 in March 2023.
Last year Samsung debuted their support for Emoji 15.0 uncharacteristically early via October 2022's One UI 5.0 update, though this update did also debut the Emoji 14.0's recommendations that were approved over a year prior.
Today Samsung has officially begun rolling out its latest major OS update. This update introduces new emojis from both 2021 and 2022, such as the 🫠 Melting Face and the plain 🩷 Pink Heart emoji.https://t.co/5DCSXmz4C0pic.twitter.com/3aUUqW3Zo9
Samsung has begun rolling out the latest version of its Android software layer, One UI 6.0. This update introduces a brand new visual style for the vast majority of Samsung's emoji designs, while also debuting support for Unicode's new 2023 emoji recommendations.
Once installed on eligible devices,One UI 6.0revises the designs of each emoji within the smiley, food, and animal categories. The update also redesigns the majority of the people and gesture emojis as well as several notable symbol emojis, leading to over 2,500 emoji design changes in total.
Above: comparison of popular emojis between 2022's One UI 5.0 and this year's One UI 6.0.
Prior to the release of One UI 6.0, the most notable update to the Samsung emoji set occurred in February 2018 with the release of Experience 9.0.
The Experience 9.0 update also revised upwards of 2,500 emoji designs, with many of the changes revising previously divergent emoji designs more consistent with those used by other platforms.
One notable example of this was the 🙄 Face with Rolling Eyes emoji, which had previously been shown with a seemingly contented facial expression on Samsung devices.
Despite the number of changes, however, Experience 9.0's design revisions were visually consistent with the cartoon-inspired style used by the Samsung emoji set since its debut on Galaxy S4 devices back in April 2013.
In comparison, One UI 6.0 completely redrawn almost all of the smiley, people, gesture, food, and animal emojis, introducing revised outlines and gradients in what can only be described as a brand-new visual identity for the emoji set.
As well as these considerable emoji design revisions, One UI 6.0 also introduces the new emoji recommendations from Unicode's Emoji 15.1 list, which was officially approved in early September.
🆕 New
One UI 6.0 debuts 118 new emojis from Emoji 15.1. Across these new emojis:
Six are brand-new emoji concepts,
Four are new non-gender-specifying family emojis with a silhouette-based design,
108 are new direction-specifying versions of six different people emojis.
With this release of One UI 6.0, 2023 becomes the second year in a row that Samsung has become the first major emoji vendor to introduce Unicode's latest emoji recommendations directly to their devices.
Prior to 2022, Samsung users were often left waiting up to a year before Unicode recommendations would be implemented within their device's native emoji design set.
The 🍋🟩 Lime has been a popular emoji request for several years and has been represented by Samsung as a single sliced wedge instead of the full-bodied fruit, in contrast to the long-standing 🍋 Lemon emoji.
Additionally, the color-specifying 🍄🟫 Brown Mushroom is a common ingredient in many global foods, in contrast to the existing 🍄 Mushroom emoji with its red color and white spots.
Each of these supports all three emoji gender options as well as the five skin tone modifier options, bringing their total to 108.
As well as support for Emoji 15.1, the One UI 6.0 update also introduces support for a selection of various 🧑🤝🧑 People Holding Hands emoji combinations originally recommended by Unicode via late 2019's Emoji 12.1.
➕ Why am I seeing two or more emojis?
Samsung users who are unable to update to One UI 6.0 as of yet will not be able to view the new emojis described bas a single emoji design.
Instead, they will be displayed as multiple emoji designs placed in a row. For example, the 🐦🔥 Phoenix will appear as the 🐦Bird and 🔥Fire emojis placed side-by-side, while the 🍋🟩 Lime will show as a 🟩Green Square placed after the 🍋Lemon emoji.
This is because like with 2019's Emoji 12.1 and 2020's Emoji 13.1, each of the new emojis from Emoji 15.1 are constructed via zero-width joiner (ZWJ) sequences - sequences that use previously-existing emojis to render a new emoji design on eligible devices.
🆙 Change Highlights
Below are some of the most notable emoji design revisions within the One UI 6.0 update.
The rollout of Samsung's One UI 6.0 update has begun today for the Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra devices in select regions.
The following additional devices were eligible for the One UI 6.0 beta program, and are expected to be able to download the update over the next number of weeks and months, though rollout will vary by device and region.
Earlier this week Microsoft announced that they have begun to roll out their latest update to Windows 11. Entitled 23H2, this update changes Microsoft's emoji support in two major ways: by adding 2022's Emoji 15.0 recommendations across Windows 11 and by integrating the glossy 3D Fluent emoji designs across a select flagship Microsoft applications.
This update also redesigned a selection of emojis within the flat Fluent set, including subtle changes to the eyes of many smiley face emoji designs.
🆕 New Emoji 15.0 Support
As shown above, a total of 31 new emojis have been added to the flat, block-color Fluent emoji design set that initially debuted within the November 2021 update to Windows 11. These emojis are:
Each of these new emojis are from Emoji 15.0, the set of emoji recommendations made by Unicode in September 2022. T
The 23H2 update does not contain any new emojis from this year's Emoji 15.1 list.
The flat block-color Fluent emoji designs shown above are still the core emoji set used within most applications following this update. However, a long-anticipated emoji feature has made its debut within Windows 11 23H2.
As shown above, the set of 3D Fluent emoji designs also includes support for 2022's Emoji 15.0 recommendations.
As per Microsoft's Windows 11 Insiders Program blog, the debut of the 3D Fluent set within platforms such as Word and PowerPoint has been made possible thanks to the 23H2 utilizing a new color font format entitled COLRv1.
With the update of our color font format to COLRv1, Windows is now able to display richer emoji with a 3D like appearance with support coming soon to some apps and browsers. These emoji use gradients to bring the design style that our customers have been asking for. The new emoji will bring more expression to your communications.
While the above quote does mention browsers, at the time of writing the block-color Fluent emoji designs are still used within the likes of Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome on Windows 11 23H2.
🆙 Changed Flat Designs
Several previously released emoji designs within the flat Fluent set have been revised within the 23H2 update. Many of these designs are from the smiley emoji category, where several emojis have had their eyes subtly reworked.
A selection of these design changes are highlighted below.
🫠 Melting Face has had its pupils' size and placement adjusted.
Additionally, a bug appears to have swapped the designs of the various 🧏♂️ Deaf Man and 🧏♀️ Deaf Woman emojis.
💻 Release
Windows 11 23H2 is now available as a free update for Windows 11 users in select regions, with global rollout continuing over the next few weeks and months.
The 3D Fluent designs are currently available in Microsoft Office applications such as Word and PowerPoint. It is expected that support will be expanded into browsers such as Microsoft Edge and additional applications in future updates.
Those using Windows Insider builds would have already received Emoji 15.0 support and the 3D Fluent designs at various stages over the past few years, varying based on their Windows Insider channel settings.
Today Google has officially unveiled its full-color designs for Unicode's latest approved emojis, which include a phoenix, a lime, smileys shaking their heads up and down, and a series of direction-specifying people emojis.
Above: the 118 new emoji designs from Emoji 15.1 in Google's Noto Color Emoji.
Additionally, today's update also changes several emojis' previous Google designs, including all previous-released family emoji designs.
Today's emoji update is expected to be released progressively across different Google platforms such as Chrome OS, Gmail, YouTube, and various Android devices over the coming days, weeks, and months.
It is also expected that the downloaded font file of this updated version of the Noto Color Emoji set will soon be made available via its Google Fonts page.
Noto Color Emoji's minimalistic companion font - Noto Emoji - was quietly updated back in September following the formal approval of Emoji 15.1 to include support for all of its new emoji sequences. It can be downloaded via its own Google Fonts page.
Above: the new emoji designs from Emoji 15.1 found in Google's Noto Emoji font.
Note that the Noto Emoji font does not support distinct designs for skin tone modifier sequences and many gender-specifying ZWJ sequences. Instead, it displays the same design as the base neutral emoji: either a blob or a humanoid silhouette.
🆕 New
The 118 new emojis in today's Noto Color Emoji can be categorized as follows:
Six are brand-new emoji concepts,
Four are new non-gender-specifying family emojis with a silhouette-based design,
108 are new direction-specifying versions of six different people emojis.
There are also four brand new non-gender-specifying family emojis within this update, each with a silhouette-based design as per Unicode's recommendations.
The remaining 108 emojis are gender- and skin-tone-based variations of six previously-released people emojis. These new additions specify a direction for these emojis, with each of them now facing to the right.
Additionally, all of the previously-released 👪 Family emoji variations now have a silhouette icon design, matching the new non-gender-specifying family emojis from Emoji 15.1 that have been released in this update.
As discussed above, these new and updated emoji designs have been released via Google's Noto Emoji Github page, meaning they are likely considered final and will not undergo further revisions before release.
These new and changed designs are therefore expected to be released progressively across different Google platforms such as Chrome OS, Gmail, YouTube, and various Android devices over the coming days, weeks, and months.
New emojis have arrived on iOS as part of the first iOS 17.4 beta. The new additions include a phoenix, a lime, smileys shaking their heads up and down, and a series of direction-specifying people emojis.
The new emojis in today's beta release are drawn from Unicode's September 2023 recommendations: Emoji 15.1.
These 118 additions consist of six brand new emoji concepts, four new non-gender-specifying family emojis, and new direction-specifying versions of six existing people emojis that amount to 108 new emojis when gender and skin tone variations are accounted for.
The six completely new emoji concepts currently in beta for iOS 17.4 are:
In addition to these new four non-gender-specifying family emojis being introduced, the iOS 17.4 beta also changes all of the existing family emoji designs.
Instead of displaying colorful people emojis alongside one another, all of the family emojis now display different combinations of white silhouettes overlayed on a grey square icon.
Closing out the new additions in iOS 17.4 are the introduction of six people emoji characters that now have direction-specifying variations:
Each of these supports all three emoji gender options as well as the five skin tone modifier options, bringing their total to 108.
Within the emoji keyboard of today's iOS 17.4 beta, the alternative-direction emoji characters appear to be accessible alongside their left-facing counterparts.
However, a bug occurs when they are attempted to be selected: the selected emoji is inverted back to its left-facing counterpart, as are all its skin tone options.
This is of course expected to be corrected in a future iOS 17.4 beta update prior to iOS 17.4's official release.
📶 Release
Coming to iOS later "this Spring" (northern hemisphere), these updates are in iOS 17.4 beta 1 which is now available for developers.
Based on past iOS beta history it's likely that the final public release of iOS 17.4 will come to users in March or April 2024.
As with all beta software, designs are subject to change prior to the final release, as has been seen within the beta releases for iOS 15.4 and iOS 12.1.
Today Apple has released its latest emoji update, introducing 118 new emojis including a phoenix, a lime, several gender-neutral family designs, and various direction-specific people emojis.
These new emojis arrived in today's release of iOS 17.4 for the iPhone and iPadOS 17.4.
In addition to these 118 new emoji designs, today's Apple emoji update also changes 26 different family emoji designs to follow recent Unicode recommendations and match the style of the new gender-neutral family emoji designs added in iOS 17.4.
All of the 118 new emojis were recommended in September 2023's Emoji 15.1 list, with no emojis' designs changing during the beta process for iOS 17.4.
🆕 New in iOS 17.4
As previewed with the release of the first iOS 17.4 beta back in January, the new 118 additions consist of:
six brand new emoji concepts,
four new non-gender-specifying family emojis,
108 new direction-specifying variations of six different previous-available people emojis
The 🍋🟩 Lime has been a popular emoji request for several years, while the color-specifying 🍄🟫 Brown Mushroom is a common ingredient in many global foods, in contrast to the existing 🍄 Mushroom emoji with its red color and white spots.
These new family emojis are distinct from those previously available on Apple devices as they are constructed from gender-neutral people emojis (i.e. 🧑 Person and 🧒 Child) as opposed to gender-specific people emojis (e.g. 👩 Woman, 👨 Man, 👧 Girl, and 👦 Boy).
Finally, this Apple emoji update also includes 108 new people emoji designs to enable both gender and skin tone support to new direction-specifying versions of previously released emoji concepts.
As was the case in the first iOS 17.4 beta, the alternative-direction emoji characters are accessible alongside their left-facing counterparts within the "People" section of the Apple emoji keyboard.
As expected, a bug detected with selecting these alternative-direction people emojis was resolved during the iOS 17.4 beta testing process.
➕ Why am I seeing two or more emojis?
Apple users who have yet to update to today's iOS 17.4 will see the new emojis with their correct designs, but they won't see an unknown character symbol either.
Instead, they will be displayed as multiple emoji designs placed in a row. For example, the 🐦🔥 Phoenix will appear as the 🐦Bird and 🔥Fire emojis placed side-by-side, while the 🍋🟩 Lime will show as a 🟩Green Square placed after the 🍋Lemon emoji.
This is because like with 2019's Emoji 12.1 and 2020's Emoji 13.1, each of the new emojis from Emoji 15.1 are constructed via zero-width joiner (ZWJ) sequences - sequences that use previously-existing emojis to render a new emoji design on eligible devices.
🆕 Changed in iOS 17.4
As mentioned above, each of the previous-released family emoji designs have been revised with the release of iOS 17.4.
Instead of displaying colorful people emojis alongside one another, all of the family emojis now display different combinations of white non-gender-indicative silhouettes overlayed on a grey square icon.
Above: comparisons of several different 👪 Family emojis between iOS 17.3 and iOS 17.4.
This change has been made in the name of complying with a recommendation made by Unicode's Emoji Subcommittee in October 2022, which proposed that all emoji vendors update their family emoji designs to display with a silhouette design.
This recommendation was made in the name of making the recommended set of family emojis fully in keeping with Unicode's people emoji policies without requiring vendors to add over 7,000 additional emoji designs to support different skin tone variations - an option that was assessed but ultimately decided against in early 2020 alongside several other alternative proposals.
Supporting all 7,230 proposed RGI sequences proves to be challenging for several reasons including but not limited to:
● Data structure and asset growth and their on-disk size impact ● UI design enabling the selection of each family members’ skin tone ● Workload required to bring support can be overwhelming for independent developers
Therefore providing full-scale skin tone support for all individual people featured within the existing recommended family sequences would have increased the number of emoji designs required to be supported within the vendor's emoji font files by almost twofold (3,782 emojis vs 11,012 emojis).
This silhouette-like design change to all the existing family emoji designs was previously outlined by ourselves here at Emojipedia. In suggesting this option, our former Chief Emoji Officer Jeremy Burge surmised that:
Silhouettes might please no-one, but at least they might displease everyone equally.
Notable, this recommendation from Unicode was implemented in the latest Google Noto Color emoji update while still maintaining a gendered appearance for previously released family emojis.
Instead of following this route, however, Apple has removed any gender-indicative design elements for any of their family emojis.
Therefore all of the family emoji sequences will be represented by one of the four designs shared with the new family emojis added in today's iOS 17.4 update.
Meanwhile, Samsung did not convert any of its previously released family emoji designs into silhouette symbols despite releasing the new Emoji 15.1 family emojis in this style, nor did WhatsApp. These vendors are both expected to follow suit in future emoji updates.
📋 The Emoji Subcommittee & Design Changes
While the Emoji Subcommittee's primary function is to recommend new emojis after assessing proposals, it can also make recommendations to make changes to previously released emoji designs. Such recommendations are, however, very rare.
The last instance Unicode made a formal recommendation for previous-released emoji designs to be broadly changed by all vendors was in 2018 when it was recommended that people emojis without a specified gender (e.g. 🧜 Merperson) be represented with a distinct design as opposed to sharing their design with one of the two existing gender variations of that emoji (e.g. 🧜♀️ Mermaid or 🧜♂️ Merman).
Above: a image taken from Unicode L2/19-078 document, "Using Gender Inclusive Designs".
Generally speaking, when an emoji design is changed within an emoji update, the change has been made at an individual vendor's discretion. For example, Unicode did not instruct Samsung to undertake a considerable redesign of its emoji design set in October 2023.
That's not to say, however, that vendors do not discuss possible changes amongst themselves in the name of design convergence, or have not had their hands gentled forced by Unicode in other ways.
For example, while not formally recommended by Unicode, in early 2021 several vendors took it upon themselves to update their 💉 Syringe emoji designs to remove the blood and therefore make the emoji more appropriate for discussions related to vaccination.
While the majority of vendors followed suit, not all have: at the time of writing, WhatsApp still displays blood in the barrel of the syringe.
iOS 17.4 is available now as a free software update for the following Apple devices:
iPhone 15 / iPhone 15 Plus / iPhone 15 Pro / iPhone 15 Pro Max
iPhone 14 / iPhone 14 Plus / iPhone 14 Pro / iPhone 14 Pro Max
iPhone 13 / iPhone 13 mini / iPhone 13 Pro / iPhone 13 Pro Max
iPhone 12 / iPhone 12 mini / iPhone 12 Pro / iPhone 12 Pro Max
iPhone 11 / iPhone 11 Pro / iPhone 11 Pro Max
iPhone XS / iPhone XS Max
iPhone XR
iPhone SE (2nd generation or later)
The same 118 new emojis are also included as part of iPadOS 17.4 and are expected to be included in the release of tvOS 17.4, watchOS 10.4, and macOS 14.4.
