💬 The Wrap
The top emoji accessed on Emojipedia daily right now is 🎄 Christmas Tree. Also in the top ten for approximately five more days are 🎅 Santa Claus and 🎁 Wrapped Gift. I just wrote about some of the most popular Christmas emojis here.
Personally, I'm impressed at the rise of 🥰 Smiling Face With 3 Hearts which despite getting less attention than the 🥯 Bagel and 🥴 Woozy Face on launch, might end up the most popular of the whole lot.
As for Emoji Wrap, these were the most opened links of 2018:
- 1️⃣ 📱 Google Gboard can use selfies to create a 'Mini' version of you
- 2️⃣ 🐰 How Feminists In China Are Using Emoji To Avoid Censorship
- 3️⃣ 💩 Poop Emoji Label No More on Yandex Maps Experiment
To subscribers old and new, thank you for being here. Now on with some hashtag content.
📰 News
📖 Facebook 3.0 Emoji Changelog
I don't have much love for Facebook as a company or product, but we'd be remiss to not document the the evolution of emojis on such a major platform.
I really like the details in some of these new designs, too.
🎌 Samsung Emoji Fixes Coming in 2019
Some answers about emojis that have gone missing from Samsung phones in recent years.
💭 Interesting
🦑 Monterey Bay Aquarium takes Apple to task for its backward squid emoji
Social media comments about "this emoji is wrong" in some way come up daily but only some end up part of a larger media cycle. Apple's 🦑 Squid seemed to be the lucky (?) winner of media attention this month. Past "winners": Apple's 🥯 Bagel and Google's 🍔 Burger. Didn't make the cut: Apple's 🦟 Mosquito having five legs.
🔥 Emojiology: Fire
John Kelly on the fire emoji: "Depicting a reddish-yellow flame, 🔥 Fire is used to convey, beyond literal fires, a range of figurative expressions connected to fire. This includes senses of 'excellent' (lit), 'attractive' (hot), 'scathing or searing' (sick burn), or 'performing exceptionally well' (on fire), among other senses."
📺 An animated guide to proposing an emoji
Regular readers will be used to "X person wanted an emoji, they submitted a proposal, and now it is an emoji" articles by now. I don't often link to them as they are so many and they tend to follow a very similar path.
This is the exception, as Mark Bramhill might be the one to document his own experience the most clearly for his own podcast, and this video covering that in the Washington Post is well done.
🎄 Christmas Emojis: The Comprehensive Guide
A look at the Santa emoji over the years - from Google "ruining Christmas" to "Mother Christmas" phrasing...a term rarely seen anywhere except in a hundred year old book and in the Unicode Standard.
📛 What’s the real meaning of Japan’s “burning tofu” emoji?
In case you never thought to look up 📛 Name Badge (HTC has discontinued its emoji set, but I did kind of enjoy their very literal version)
👼 Emojiology: Baby Angel
Tracking the evolution of the baby angel since the 15th century. I love when an emoji intersects with art and history in such a clear way.
🗓 2019 Unicalendar
Firstly, this is v cool having an IRL calendar with 🥳 World Emoji Day on it. Secondly - if you didn't win one in the giveaway last month - you can now order your own 2019 Unicalendar right here.
🏁 Emoji Flags Explained
Wherein I attempt to detail how and why some flags have emojis, and others don't. It's a complex beast.
🎙 Podcasts
🦑 Download #82: No! This Is Terrible!
I chat with Stephen Hackett about the squid issues mentioned up top of this newsletter. And accidentally call the thing on the front of its face a "nose" (because I am not a squid expert).
(jump to the 30 minute mark for this section)
😻 Emojis de gatitos
Andy Cukier loves cats and she also has a podcast about cats: Gatocracia. In this episode Andy and I chat a bit about the cat emojis and what they bring to the table 😹😺😻😼😽😾😿🙀😸
(note: it's in Spanish)
📲 Clockwise #273: I'm in Troubletown
I was a guest on this week's Clockwise podcast, where we got into what I really think about Facebook deletions, the great Pixel night mode, and Christmas traditions.
🤗 Lastly
To any new subscribers to the newsletter: welcome!
You can find me on Twitter at @jeremyburge or for just the emoji stuff, you can follow @EmojiWrap for newsletter and podcast things, or @Emojipedia for frequent emoji tweets.