Welcome to our latest edition of the Emoji Wrap newsletter, where we’re looking back on our thirteenth World Emoji Day celebrations which took place last Friday, July 17! 🌎🥳📅
For years, the internet has insisted a seahorse emoji exists, with Reddit, TikTok, and even AI chatbots claiming to remember it, despite none ever making the standard set. However, researcher Matt Sephton has added a curious new wrinkle to the story, digging up a 1988 Toshiba Rupo manual with a seahorse standing in for the dragon in a zodiac lineup. It’s almost certainly not the seahorse people are actually remembering, but it’s a genuine seahorse-shaped character that predates emoji as we know them. 🌊🐎
The same research also uncovered documentation using the word “emoji” to explicitly describe an icon set in 1988, years before the SoftBank and DoCoMo sets usually credited with starting the modern emoji story. It follows Matt’s earlier discoveries documenting uses of the word “emoji” that predate digital products entirely. 📜🔍
On the new emoji front, the nineteen candidates for Emoji 18.0 got fresh visibility ahead of their expected approval in September, with Unicode’s Jennifer Daniel sharing an additional preview and revised sample designs. We also highlighted the draft list through our own Most Anticipated New Emoji 2026 award. 🆕🏆
Google marked the day with a behind-the-scenes look at Noto 3D, its upcoming overhaul of Noto Color Emoji into fully three-dimensional models. 🤖🎨
And on WhatsApp, we traced its history of straying from the standard emoji set: the 🏴 Flag for England years ahead of Unicode, the 🖕 Middle Finger before other vendors, a since-deleted Olympic Rings emoji, right through to its newest tie-in, an Adidas-designed ⚽ Soccer Ball matching the World Cup’s official match ball. 🤝⚽
As for the World Emoji Awards: Distorted Face topped Most Popular New Emoji ahead of Orca and Fight Cloud, its second award after also winning Most Anticipated in 2025. And 🔥 Fire took home Lifetime Achievement, joining past winners 🫠 Melting Face, ✨ Sparkles, and ❤️ Red Heart. 🏆🔥
📰 News
🌊🐴 The Seahorse Emoji WAS Real (But Not the One You Remember)
There’s never been an official seahorse emoji: not in Unicode’s approved list, not in SoftBank’s 1997 set, not in DoCoMo’s 1999 set, or in any yet that came after. But researcher Matt Sephton found one anyway, buried in the manual for a 1988 Toshiba Rupo JW95F word processor, occupying the dragon’s slot in a zodiac-themed character set.
The odds anyone was actually remembering this specific seahorse when reporting the emoji had since gone missing are slim, but it’s genuine historical evidence related to one of the internet’s most persistent shared false memories.
📜 The Word “Emoji” Is Older Than You May Think
The same Toshiba manual that turned up the seahorse also explicitly labels its character set “emoji” (絵文字), predating the SoftBank and DoCoMo sets by close to a decade.
Digging further, the word’s use as a dictionary headword traces back to 1954, with an OED citation suggesting it may go back to 1928.
Google Provides BTS Look At Their Upcoming Noto 3D Emoji Overhaul
Google’s Jennifer Daniel walks through Noto 3D, the overhaul of their almost 4,000 emoji designs into three-dimensional models.
It explains why the new 3D designs favour playful, full-bodied character over photorealism (their words: have you looked closely at a real kangaroo?). The rollout also adds an AI-driven contrast tool for visibility in dark mode, and all the raw model files will be made open source.
⚽🏳️ WhatsApp’s Emoji Adventures: From Non-RGI Flags To Brand Partnerships
For this year’s FIFA World Cup, WhatsApp partnered with Adidas to redesign the ⚽ Soccer Ball to match the official “Trionda” match ball, unusually rolling the change out to iOS as well as Android.
It’s the latest chapter in a much longer streak of independence: WhatsApp added the 🏴 Flag for England three years before Unicode did, was the first major vendor to support the 🖕 Middle Finger emoji, briefly shipped a since-removed Olympic Rings emoji in 2016, and added a Flag for Texas and Refugee Nations flag sequence in later updates.
💭 Interesting
🥇The Most Popular New Emoji of 2026 Is...
Last September’s Emoji 17.0 approval brought 163 new candidates to the standard set, including Distorted Face, Orca, Fight Cloud, and 🧑🩰 Ballet Dancer. After nine months of rollout across select vendors, Emojipedia’s own usage data crowned Distorted Face the winner, ahead of Orca and Fight Cloud, with 🧑🩰 Ballet Dancer and Treasure Chest completing the top five.
It was Distorted Face‘s second win, having also topped the Most Anticipated Emoji vote back in 2025. It would also win a third award this year, being named our “Most 2026 Emoji” across our various social channels.
🔮👀 The Most Anticipated Emoji of 2026 Is...
Nineteen new candidates are on the draft list for Emoji 18.0, slated for Unicode approval in September, including directional thumb gestures, a monarch butterfly, a pickle, a lighthouse, a meteor, an eraser, and a bug net. Public voting closed on World Emoji Day itself, with the Cracking Face taking top spot ahead of the Pickle and Meteor, and the Monarch Butterfly and Lighthouse rounding out the top five.
That win is a bit of a plot twist: the Cracking Face wasn’t even on the original draft list, having been swapped in to replace a “Face With Squinting Eyes” concept that needed more scrutiny.
🔥🏅 Lifetime Achievement Award: The Fire Emoji
🔥 Fire joins a run of Lifetime Achievement winners that includes 🫠 Melting Face (2025), ✨ Sparkles (2024), 🤣 Rolling on the Floor Laughing (2023), ❤️ Red Heart (2022), and 😭 Loudly Crying Face (2021).
Its popularity comes down to range: a meaning stretching from literal warmth to “hot,” “on fire,” and a general Gen Z stamp of approval.
🧠🔍 Emoji & Psychological Research: Introducing Team Emoji
Professor Linda K. Kaye of Edge Hill University introduces Team Emoji, an international research collective spanning the UK, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Australia. Their early work suggests emoji may not carry the automatic “processing advantage” of other emotional stimuli, meaning we likely interpret their emotional content consciously rather than instinctively.
🤗 Lastly
That does it for this look back at World Emoji Day 2026! 🌯📯
If you want to keep reliving it (or just missed the day itself), you can catch up via the #WorldEmojiDay hashtag or the official accounts:
And for all the latest emoji news and analysis, follow Emojipedia on X, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.
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