Do you really know? Who invented emojis?
Jan 29, 2026
A quick tour of World Emoji Day and how tiny pictograms shaped digital chat. A brief history from the 1960s smiley to 1990s emoticons and Japan’s 1999 graphical leap. How Apple’s 2011 move made emojis mainstream. A look at the Unicode process for adding new icons and how platforms style them. Snippets on who uses emojis most around the world.
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How Emojis Filled The Missing Nonverbal Cue
- Emojis evolved from earlier visual cues like the 1963 smiley and text-based emoticons to fill missing non-verbal signals online.
- Joseph Chance explains that emojis became widespread as internet chat needed a visual punctuation to convey tone.
From 1963 Smiley To 1999 Yellow Faces
- The smiley face predates the internet and was imagined by an American in 1963 and later popularized in France and press in 1972.
- Joseph Chance recounts how emoticons then appeared in the 1990s and were later dressed as yellow faces by a Japanese telecom in 1999.
Submit New Emoji Through Unicode
- Propose new emoji to the Unicode Consortium if you want a symbol to become universal across platforms.
- Expect platform vendors like Apple and Google to redesign the approved character for their own emoji sets.