💬 The Wrap
Happy World Emoji Day 2024! 🌎🥳📅
Today marks our 11th annual World Emoji Day celebration and our ninth year of providing sample designs of what Unicode's current draft emoji candidates could look like on our devices after they are approved later this year. 🖼️📲
There are a total of eight new emojis included in the draft Emoji 16.0 list, including a smiley face with bags under its eyes, a paint splatter, and a human fingerprint. You can read about the full list and their expected release dates on different devices here. 🆕🎨
As well as debuting these new emoji designs, earlier today we launched a brand new section of our Emojipedia site: the Emoji Playground. 🤩🛝
Debuting with a selection of emoji quiz games such as "Guess The Flag", "Older/Newer" and "Odd One Out" alongside the classic Emoji Mashup Bot experience, the Emoji Playground will be our experience hub for an ever-expanding series of emoji-based games and image creation experiences. ✨🚀
Additionally, JoyPixels have released version 9.0 of their freemium emoji set in honor of World Emoji Day. 🆕🦄
In non-World Emoji Day news since our last edition of the Emoji Wrap, in June Apple have revealed an A.I. emoji sticker generator tool called "Gemoji", which will also debut alongside a means of embedding sticker images inline with text. 🦖✨
Additionally, with its most recent emoji update, messaging platform WhatsApp collaborated with the Mercedes-Benz F1 team to redesign their 🏎️ Racing Car emoji. Is this the first of a series of brand-based redesigns of emojis within a specific emoji set, or will it be an isolated incident? Only time will tell. 🤝💼
Finally, in May we here at Emojipedia reported on a sets of emoji-like icon rediscovered within a series of mobile devices by Sharp and NEC and that pre-date both Softbank’s 1997 mobile phone and Docomo’s 1995 “Pocket Bell” pagers. Can these now be considered the earliest emoji sets? It's debatable, but nevertheless several of these early emoji-like designs can be viewed on Emojipedia thanks to the efforts of games developer and blogger Matt Sephton.
✨ New Emojis
🎨 New Emojis In 2024-2025
Eight brand new emojis are on the draft list for Emoji 16.0, including a new flag emoji that has some emoji aficionados confused given Unicode's 2022 declaration that it wouldn't be accepted any further flag emoji proposals.
In this article we outline the new emojis, explain how the Flag for Sark came into existence without Unicode changings its policy on flag emojis, and outline when you should expect to see these new emojis on different devices throughout late 2024 and into 2025.
🦖 Genmoji - Apple's Emoji Image Creation Tool for iOS 18
As part of their WWDC event back in June, Apple announced a series of new artificial intelligence (AI) features coming as part iOS 18. One such feature are Genmoji - user-generated emoji-like sticker designs that can be created within Apple's own emoji keyboard.
Here we outline everything we currently know about Genmoji, including how Apple is aiming to have users be able to place these A.I. creations inline with text like Unicode recommended emoji characters.
📰 News
🛝 Emoji Playground launches on Emojipedia
Emojipedia's new Emoji Playground is our new hub for emoji games, creation tools, and other emoji-based experiences.
Our first experiences include the classic Emoji Mashup Bot experience developed by Louan Bengmah (which you can read more about here), as well as quiz games like "Guess The Flag" and "Odd One Out".
☄️ Emojipedia x Semrush: Emoji Marketing Mini-Course
We here at Emojipedia have collaborated with the digital marketing platform Semrush's Academy and Gen Z copywriting agency Word Tonic to create the world's first Emoji Marketing Mini-Course in celebration of World Emoji Day 2024!
The first 50 people who complete the course today on World Emoji Day and share their certificate online will receive a custom-designed emoji image commissioned by Semrush.
🦄 JoyPixels 9.0 Emoji Changelog
JoyPixels introduces support for Unicode's Emoji 15.1 recommendations in its latest update, as well as revising significant number of previously-available emoji designs.
📜 New Earliest Emoji Sets From 1988 & 1990 Uncovered
In 2019 we here at Emojipedia corrected the record on the first emoji set, noting that Domoco’s i-mode emojis from 20 years prior was not the first set to exist.
Now in 2024 the debate regarding the earliest known emoji sets has become even more interesting with the rediscovery of several emoji-like icon sets developed by NEC and Sharp dating back to the 1980s.
🏎️ WhatsApp updates Race Car Emoji as part of Mercedes-Benz F1 brand deal
Late last year WhatsApp announced a collaboration with the Mercedes-Benz F1 team.
In April of this year this collaboration directly impacted our emoji keyboards when the WhatsApp for Android 2.24.8.85 update redesigned the 🏎️ Racing Car to be a black and teal open-wheel car like the one Mercedes uses in real life.
💭 Interesting
📚 How to stack emojis in iMessage
A brief viral trend thanks largely to Tiktok, Apple users recently discovered that thanks to a iOS 17 feature they were able to create layered emoji collages within their Messages app.
Here Mashable provides a handy how-to guide to this fun-but-cumbersome emoji layering trend.
🔊 Google Phone starts rolling out ‘Audio Emoji’ and they’re really weird
In a admittedly odd new emoji-adjacent feature, Google Pixels users can use new "audio emoji" sound effects during calls with one another. The sound effects include party popper (🎉), poop emoji (💩), sad trombone (🎺, close enough), drum (🥁), and applause (👏).
The feature is reminisicent of Facebook's 2021 Soundmojis feature that was launched ahead of World Emoji Day.
⛓️💥 Breaking the Curse
Here the Chairperson of the Unicode Emoji Subcommitee Jennifer Daniel outlines the possible uses of Emoji 15.1's versatile ⛓️💥 Broken Chain emoji.
🤗 Lastly
That does it for this World Emoji Day 2024 edition of the Emoji Wrap! 🌯📯
To keep up with everything that's happening throughout the day, you can read about all the happenings on the Emojipedia blog, use the #WorldEmojiDay hashtag or follow our official accounts:
- 🥳 World Emoji Day on X (Twitter)
- 🥳 World Emoji Day on Threads
- 🥳 World Emoji Day on Facebook
- 🥳 World Emoji Day on Instagram
- 🥳 World Emoji Day on Tiktok
You can follow Emojipedia on X (Twitter), as well as the members of our Emojipedia team:
- 🎮 World Emoji Day social team coordinator Chris Brandrick
- 🎨 Head of Sample Emoji Design Joshua Jones
- 📰 And me, Emojipedia's Editor In Chief Keith Broni
Emojipedia and World Emoji Day are brought to you by Zedge, the world's #1 phone personalization app.