119 Fun Facts About Emoji

What do the two Japanese words that make up "emoji" literally mean?

Picture + character: e means picture and moji means character, so the word's likeness to "emotion" and "emoticon" is pure coincidence.

Which emoji was Oxford Dictionaries' Word of the Year in 2015?

Face with tears of joy won because Oxford's research with SwiftKey found it was the most used emoji worldwide in 2015.

Shigetaka Kurita designed 176 emoji in 1999 for the i-mode service of which company?

NTT DoCoMo's 176 icons were an instant hit, but rival carriers built their own sets, which often wouldn't display on each other's phones.

In 2016 which institution acquired the original 1999 Japanese emoji set for its permanent collection?

The Museum of Modern Art received the 176 icons as a gift from their maker and hailed them as seeds of a new visual language.

What did Apple share on World Emoji Day in 2017?

A preview of upcoming emoji such as Woman with Headscarf and Breastfeeding, which Apple said would help people express more diversity.

Which tower, modelled on the Eiffel Tower, does the 🗼 emoji depict?

Tokyo Tower was planned as an antenna for radio and television broadcasting, not merely as a tourist landmark.

Who founded the reference site Emojipedia in 2013 and went on to invent World Emoji Day?

Jeremy Burge started the site as a pet project after an iOS update added emoji and he couldn't find a list of which ones were new.

Scott Fahlman proposed the :-) and :-( emoticons in 1982 on which school's bulletin board?

Carnegie Mellon University's bulletin board kept missing sarcasm, sparking long angry replies, so Fahlman proposed a joke marker.

In 2017 a tech CEO pledged to "drop everything" to fix the layering in which food emoji?

Hamburger: Android's design put the cheese beneath the patty, and after the CEO's pledge a redesign moved it on top.

Which American company first pushed for emoji standardisation, petitioning the Unicode Technical Committee in 2007?

Google's internationalization team saw emoji booming in Japan and argued they belonged in the standard; Apple engineers joined the proposal in 2009.

Before 2011, downloading what unlocked the iPhone's hidden emoji keyboard?

A third-party app: Apple had built the keyboard for the Japanese market, and only iOS 5 let everyone switch it on in 2011.

The skin-tone modifiers added to emoji in 2015 are based on which dermatological classification?

Fitzpatrick scale types lie behind the modifiers, which Unicode added in response to concerns that most human emoji looked white.

How many skin-tone modifier characters does Unicode offer for human emoji?

Five: the dermatology scale behind them has six types, but its two lightest were merged into a single modifier.

Flag emoji are built from "regional indicator" symbols that spell out which of a nation's codes?

The nation's two-letter ISO code, such as DE for Germany; each platform then decides which of those letter pairs to draw as flags.

Which new emoji led the 2014 news frenzy that flooded Emojipedia with visitors?

Middle finger: the rush of visitors to Emojipedia's list of new emoji knocked the site offline.

In Japan the 💩 emoji can be used to wish someone what?

Good luck: the Japanese word for poo, unko, starts with the same sound as the word for luck, the pun behind gold poo charms.

Gmail's original poop emoji had no face, but which detail did it include?

Animated flies circling it were its designer's proudest touch: he said they brought it to life so you could almost smell it.

Among Gen Z texters, the 💀 emoji most often stands for which phrase?

It took over from the laughing-crying face, which younger users came to see as an emoji "for boomers".

In a 2016 beta, Apple made which fruit emoji look less like a bum?

Peach: a later beta brought back its bum-like curves before the update reached the public.

In iOS 10 (2016) Apple redesigned its gun emoji from a realistic revolver into what?

A toy water pistol, and by 2018 the other major platforms had dropped realistic guns too, until X turned its version back into a firearm in 2024.

Fred Benenson's crowdsourced emoji translation of which novel did the Library of Congress acquire in 2013?

Moby-Dick was translated line by line by paid Mechanical Turk workers, with the costs raised through a Kickstarter campaign.

Tom Scott and Natalie Gray's app Emojli had what defining rule?

Messages and usernames could only be emoji; 70,000 names were reserved before launch, and the upkeep led its makers to shut it in 2015.

Which celebrity's 2015 emoji app reportedly earned $1 million a minute at launch?

Kim Kardashian's Kimoji topped the paid App Store chart and set off a wave of celebrity emoji apps, from StephMoji to Hillarymoji.

Which distinguished actor voiced the character Poop in The Emoji Movie (2017)?

Jordan Peele said he was offered the part first and that the offer helped convince him to retire from acting.

The Emoji Movie became the first animated film ever to win which award at the Golden Raspberries?

Worst Picture was one of four Razzies for a film that still grossed about $218 million worldwide on a $50 million budget.

Which keyboard shortcut opens the emoji panel on Windows 10 and 11?

Win + . opens the Emoji Panel, which Microsoft added in a 2017 Windows 10 preview after users asked for an easier way to type emoji.

Android's "blob" emoji were retired in 2017 with which release of Android?

Oreo swapped the blobs for round faces because they were read differently on other platforms, though they later returned as sticker packs.

Several Apple emoji contain tiny text lifted from which famous Apple ad?

Think different was narrated by Richard Dreyfuss, because first choice Robin Williams wouldn't appear in advertising.

Emojination was founded in 2015 after its creators noticed there was no emoji for which food?

Dumpling: finding none, founders Jennifer 8. Lee and Yiying Lu crowdfunded a Unicode membership on Kickstarter to campaign for one.

The 🦟 emoji was added in 2018 mainly to raise awareness of what?

Mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue drove the proposal, which pitched the emoji as a way for health professionals to reach the public.

Emojicon, the first convention devoted entirely to emoji, was held in November 2016 in which city?

San Francisco hosted it, and its organizers wanted to give ordinary users a say in a process that usually plays out behind closed doors.

Japanese kaomoji differ from Western smileys in what basic way?

They are read upright, not sideways, whereas Scott Fahlman's 1982 post proposing :-) told readers to "Read it sideways".

Drake's 2021 album Certified Lover Boy has cover art made of twelve emoji showing what?

Pregnant women: the cover, by artist Damien Hirst, was quickly mocked as ridiculous when it was unveiled days before release.

A University of Michigan study of emoji use found people in which country favour heart emoji most?

France: the researchers tied emoji habits to culture, finding that individualistic countries such as France and Australia sent more happy emoji.

Kurita's 1999 emoji set was preceded by a 90-emoji set on a 1997 phone from which Japanese carrier?

SoftBank's later emoji set became the basis for the first emoji Apple put on the iPhone.

On platforms that draw a bridge, which landmark does the 🌁 Foggy emoji usually show?

Golden Gate Bridge: the US Navy wanted it painted in black and yellow stripes, but architect Irving Morrow chose International Orange.

Young users abandoned a 1990s Japanese pager after it dropped which symbol, a lesson that inspired Kurita's emoji?

A heart: when a business-minded Pocket Bell model removed it, teens switched to a rival pager, convincing Kurita that texting needed symbols.

By 2021 which emoji had overtaken 😂 as the most used on Twitter, according to Emojipedia?

The shift tracked TikTok users declaring the older favourite an emoji "for boomers" in January of that year.

Which novelist said in 1969 there ought to be "a special typographical sign for a smile"?

Vladimir Nabokov imagined "a supine round bracket" and said he would like to trace one in reply to the interviewer's question.

Which film do the emoji 🦁👑 describe?

The Lion King follows Simba, who flees after his uncle Scar kills his father, then returns to take back the throne.

Which children's book do the emoji 🐷🕸️ describe?

Charlotte's Web has a clever spider named Charlotte scheme to save her friend Wilbur the pig from being slaughtered.

Which film do the emoji 🔍🐠 describe?

Finding Nemo sends the clownfish Marlin across the ocean with the forgetful Dory after a diver takes his son.

Which Roald Dahl novel do the emoji 🍫🏭 describe?

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory drew, Dahl wrote, on his Repton schooldays, when Cadbury sent pupils new chocolates to taste and rate.

Which film do the emoji 🐝🎬 describe?

Bee Movie follows Barry B. Benson, who learns humans have been taking bees' honey and sets out to win justice for his kind.

Which film do the emoji 🎈🎈🏠 describe?

Up follows Carl Fredricksen, who ties thousands of balloons to his house and flies to South America, only to find a boy stowed away.

Which film do the emoji 🐀👨‍🍳 describe?

Ratatouille follows Remy, a rat with a gourmet's palate, who lands beneath the Paris restaurant made famous by his hero, Gusteau.

Which film do the emoji 👻🚫 describe?

Ghostbusters follows three scientists who lose their university jobs and go freelance, running a ghost-removal business in New York City.

Which film do the emoji 🍝🐕🐕 describe?

Lady and the Tramp pairs a pampered cocker spaniel with a street-smart stray who protects her once she ends up on the loose.

Which film do the emoji 🚢🧊💔 describe?

Titanic has Jack Dawson win his ticket for the voyage in a poker game.

Which film do the emoji ⏰🚗⚡ describe?

Back to the Future sends Marty McFly to 1955 in Doc Brown's DeLorean, where he must make sure his parents fall in love or he will vanish.

Which storybook character do the emoji 🐻🍯 describe?

Winnie-the-Pooh was drawn by E. H. Shepard from his own son's teddy bear, Growler, rather than Christopher Robin's toy.

Which film do the emoji 🐍✈️ describe?

Snakes on a Plane has an assassin release a crate of venomous snakes on a flight to kill a witness guarded by an FBI agent.

Which film do the emoji 🐘🪶 describe?

Dumbo is mocked for his enormous ears until he discovers they let him fly, and he astounds the whole circus.

Which film do the emoji 🌪️👠🐶 describe?

The Wizard of Oz whisks Dorothy and her dog Toto from Kansas to Oz, where they follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City.

Which film do the emoji 🏠🧒🎄 describe?

Home Alone begins when Kevin's family leaves for Paris without him, and he ends up defending the house against two burglars.

Which holiday classic do the emoji 🎃👑🎄 describe?

The Nightmare Before Christmas follows Jack Skellington, Halloween Town's Pumpkin King, who stumbles into Christmas Town and plots to take over the holiday.

Which children's book do the emoji 🐛🍎🍐🍑🦋 describe?

The Very Hungry Caterpillar began as a story about a bookworm until Eric Carle's editor suggested a caterpillar, and he answered: "Butterfly!"

Which 1865 novel do the emoji 👧🐇🕳️ describe?

Alice in Wonderland grew from a story Lewis Carroll made up for three young sisters on a boat trip, a day he recalled in the book's opening poem.

Which young-adult book series do the emoji 🏹🔥🍞 describe?

The Hunger Games came to Suzanne Collins one evening while she was channel-surfing between a reality-TV competition and war footage.

Which English idiom do the emoji 🌧️🐱🐶 describe?

It's raining cats and dogs has no known origin, and the popular tale of pets sliding off soggy roofs is considered unlikely by etymologists.

Which band do the emoji 🪲🪲🪲🪲 describe?

The Beatles lost out after their 1962 Decca audition: the label signed Brian Poole and the Tremeloes instead, partly because they were local.

Which fantasy epic do the emoji 🧙💍🌋 describe?

The Lord of the Rings began as the sequel Tolkien's publisher requested after The Hobbit's success, then grew into a far larger work.

Which 1989 Disney film do the emoji 🧜‍♀️🦀🐟 describe?

The Little Mermaid rewrote Hans Christian Andersen's ending, in which the prince marries someone else and the mermaid dissolves into sea foam.

Which 1981 computer's built-in character set already included two smiley faces?

The IBM PC's smiley character went on to star as the player in text-mode games such as ZZT.

In 2023 a Canadian judge ruled that a farmer's reply with which emoji meant he had accepted a contract?

A thumbs-up cost a Saskatchewan farmer C$82,000 after the judge ruled that his reply to a texted flax contract counted as a signature.

Which pictograph font began life as three fonts called Lucida Icons, Arrows and Stars?

Wingdings is what Microsoft called the three Lucida symbol fonts after it remapped and renamed them, so its icons still harmonize with Lucida text fonts.

Which invisible character is placed between emoji so that a man, woman and girl display as one family emoji?

The zero-width joiner was already steering how letters combine in Indic scripts such as Devanagari before emoji families borrowed it.

The 🖖 emoji, added to Unicode in 2014, shows the hand salute of which Star Trek species?

Vulcans got the salute from Leonard Nimoy, who based it on a Jewish priestly blessing he glimpsed as a boy in synagogue.

Which book series do the emoji ⚡👓🧙‍♂️ describe?

Harry Potter was turned down by publisher after publisher until Bloomsbury's boss let his eight-year-old daughter read it, and she said it was so much better than anything else.

World Emoji Day is held on July 17 thanks to a detail of Apple's design for which emoji?

Calendar emoji on iPhones show July 17, the day Apple premiered its iCal app in 2002. That hidden nod handed emoji fans a ready-made date for their annual celebration.

Unicode describes the 🗿 emoji as a Japanese stone statue resembling the giant carved heads found where?

Easter Island's moai lend the emoji its look, but its Unicode name is 'moyai', after a statue near Shibuya Station. That statue's name blends 'moai' with a Japanese word for helping each other.

Microsoft redrew the 📎 emoji in Windows 11 as which retired Office helper?

Clippy came back after Microsoft said it would replace its paperclip emoji if a tweet got 20,000 likes. The assistant's official name was Clippit all along.

Which NBC sitcom that ran for ten seasons from 1994 do the emoji ☕🗽👫👫👫 describe?

Friends follows six pals in Manhattan who gather at the Central Perk coffee house. Its barista Gunther appears in every season, yet the actor was only ever credited as a guest star.

Which pro skater helped redraw Emojipedia's skateboard emoji after mocking a first draft as a department-store board?

Tony Hawk said the first draft looked like a skateboard bought at a department store in the '80s. The fixed emoji was based on his own board, and later designs from phone makers resemble it too.

The 🤙 'call me' emoji doubles as the shaka sign, the official hand gesture of which US state?

Hawaii made the shaka its official state gesture in 2024. The gesture, also known as 'hang loose', is tied to surf culture around the world and stands for the aloha spirit.

Which 1980 arcade maze game from Japan's Namco do the emoji 🟡⚪⚪👻👻 describe?

Pac-Man was designed by Toru Iwatani to appeal to women as well as men, at a time when most arcade games were about war or sports. Its hero's shape is said to echo a pizza with a slice removed.

Berlin teenager Rayouf Alhumedhi wrote the 2016 proposal that gave emoji keyboards a woman wearing what?

A hijab was missing when the 15-year-old looked for an emoji of herself in a WhatsApp group chat. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian later joined her campaign.

Which South Korean survival drama, a Netflix hit in 2021, do the emoji 🦑🎮💰 describe?

Squid Game takes its title from a real Korean children's game popular in the 1970s and 1980s. On screen, 456 heavily indebted players risk their lives for a giant cash prize.

Which vegetable emoji did Instagram block from hashtag searches in 2015 over its cheeky double meaning?

Eggplant hashtags were being used to tag rude photos, so Instagram made the emoji unsearchable. The block, which began in April 2015, followed a popular tagging trend called #EggplantFridays.

The 🤌 emoji shows a questioning bunched-hand gesture mainly associated with which country?

Italy has no single name for the gesture: speakers call it a purse hand, a tulip or a pinecone. It usually asks 'what do you want?'

The 🤟 emoji, a hand with three digits raised, is an American Sign Language gesture meaning what?

I love you is signed by combining the handshapes for the letters I, L and Y. The gesture began among deaf schoolchildren before moving into the mainstream.

Which HBO drama that ran for eight seasons until 2019 do the emoji 👑🪑⚔️🐉 describe?

Game of Thrones grew from novels George R. R. Martin wrote to be as big as he wanted, with a cast in the thousands, huge castles, battles and dragons.

Which 1897 Gothic horror novel, which opens on a business trip to Transylvania, do the emoji 🧛🏰🩸 describe?

Dracula has no single storyteller: the tale unfolds through letters, diary entries and newspaper articles. Its vampire count leaves his castle to plague the English seaside town of Whitby.

Senator Angus King lobbied Unicode for a lobster emoji as a symbol of which US state's culture?

Maine got what its senator called 'great news' when the lobster emoji arrived in 2018. King had petitioned Unicode with search data to show that people wanted one.

Which mobile game series from Rovio, later turned into animated movies, do the emoji 😡🐦🐷🥚 describe?

Angry Birds has a flock of flightless birds defend their nest of eggs from round green pigs. The phone game grew into a franchise big enough for cinema releases.

The 🙏 emoji means please or thank you in Japan, but emoji keyboards often suggest it for which gesture?

High five searches often bring up the emoji, though people rarely use it that way. Besides its Japanese meaning, the pressed palms are widely used for prayer.

Which fairy tale featuring a wicked stepmother and cruel stepsisters do the emoji 👠🎃🕛 describe?

Cinderella owes her pumpkin, fairy godmother and glass slippers to Charles Perrault, who added all three in his 1697 retelling of a much older folk tale.

Which 2017 Apple phone introduced Animoji, animated emoji that mirror the user's own facial expressions?

iPhone X animated its emoji with the same face-scanning sensors that unlock the phone. Apple skipped the number nine in its name to mark the handset line's tenth anniversary.

Which idiom for an obvious problem that nobody wants to talk about do the emoji 🐘🛋️🏠 describe?

The elephant in the room has a cousin in an 1814 fable by Ivan Krylov. In it a man notices all sorts of tiny exhibits but somehow misses the largest animal on show.

Which AMC drama series set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, do the emoji 👨‍🏫🧪💊💵 describe?

Breaking Bad follows an overqualified chemistry teacher who starts making drugs after a cancer diagnosis, hoping to secure his family's future. His business partner is a former student.

Which soft drink brand built a 2015 Puerto Rico ad campaign around a web address containing a smiley emoji?

Coca-Cola aimed the campaign at mobile users, who always have an emoji keyboard to hand. A 2018 survey counted about 25,000 emoji addresses registered under the .ws suffix alone.

Which sandbox game from Sweden's Mojang Studios, bought by Microsoft in 2014, do the emoji ⛏️🧱🌍 describe?

Minecraft cost Microsoft US$2.5 billion when it bought the game and its studio. Players dig and build in worlds of three-dimensional blocks that stretch on almost without end.

Which Katy Perry single got a 2013 lyric video that swapped some of its words for emoji?

Roar arrived with a lyric video of Perry texting the words through her day, from breakfast to bath time. A rival producer complained that the instant-messaging idea copied his own video.

Which social media company bought Bitstrips in 2016 and built its Bitmoji cartoon avatars into its own app?

Snapchat shut down the Bitstrips comic service after the deal but kept Bitmoji, giving the personalised cartoon avatars a bigger role across its platform.

Which Netflix science-fiction series set in 1980s Indiana do the emoji 🔦👧🧠👾🙃 describe?

Stranger Things begins when Eleven, a girl with psychokinetic powers, accidentally opens a wormhole called the Upside Down. The setting is described as 'the town where nothing ever happens'.

On maps in Japan, the steaming symbol copied by the ♨️ emoji marks the location of what?

Hot springs, known as onsen, get the steaming round tub on maps across the country. Elsewhere the emoji is borrowed for cooking steam, barbecue heat or a stove.

Which Shakespeare tragedy about two feuding families in Verona do the emoji 👦💕👧🧪🗡️ describe?

Romeo and Juliet turns on a potion meant to put the bride into a deathlike coma for 'two and forty hours'. She wakes to find her lover dead and stabs herself with his dagger.

Which heavy metal star popularised the 'horns' hand sign shown in the 🤘 emoji after joining Black Sabbath?

Ronnie James Dio said he learned the gesture from his grandmother, who used it to ward off the evil eye. He wanted a hand signal of his own to connect with fans.

Which Nordic country was the first in the world to publish its own set of country-themed emoji?

Finland drew 60 tongue-in-cheek emoji to explain its hard-to-describe emotions, words and customs to the rest of the world.

Which animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox network do the emoji 🟡👨‍👩‍👧‍👦🛋️🎷 describe?

The Simpsons are yellow because the show's colourist felt Bart, Lisa and Maggie, who have no hairlines, would look strange in flesh tones. Lisa plays a new saxophone solo in the opening titles.

The 🔰 emoji is a V-shaped badge that which group of motorists must display in Japan?

New drivers must show the mark at the front and rear of the car for one year after getting a licence. Anyone who still feels like a beginner may keep displaying it afterwards.

Which BBC science-fiction series that began in 1963 do the emoji 🧑‍⚕️❓⏳📞📦 describe?

Doctor Who sends its hero through space and time in the TARDIS, a ship that looks like a British police box from outside. The lead character is an alien from a species called Time Lords.

Which graphic artist drew the classic yellow smiley face in 1963 for an insurance company and earned just $45?

Harvey Ball took ten minutes over the drawing and never trademarked it. The insurer had hired him to lift staff morale, which had sunk after a company merger.

In anime and manga, the nose bubble seen on the 😪 emoji shows that a character is what?

Tired or asleep is the meaning of the snot bubble, a visual shorthand from Japanese comics. The emoji is often misread as a tearful, disappointed or sickly face instead.

Which 1985 Nintendo platform game with a two-player mode do the emoji 🍄👸🐢🏰 describe?

Super Mario Bros. sends its hero across the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue Princess Toadstool from Bowser, king of the turtle-like Koopas.

The 😤 emoji, puffing steam from its nose, was originally named for a look of what, rather than fury?

Triumph was in its first official name, Face With Look of Triumph. The steam may come from anime and manga, where it is shorthand for frustration or disdain.

Which classic novel narrated by a lawyer's young daughter in 1930s Alabama do the emoji 💀🐦⚖️ describe?

To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize a year after its release. Harper Lee loosely based it on her family, her neighbours and an event near her hometown when she was ten.

The red 💢 emoji comes from anime and manga, where it stands for what on a furious character?

Popping veins are the idea: the red curves mimic a blood vessel bulging on someone in a rage. Other comic books use the same burst to show a punch landing beside a 'Bam' or 'Pow'.

The 💽 emoji, officially a 'computer disk', actually depicts which discontinued Sony music format?

MiniDisc recorders stored up to 80 minutes of audio on a small disc inside a square cartridge. The format was dropped in 2013, yet its emoji still stands in for albums of every kind.

The tulip-shaped 📛 emoji is a name badge in a style commonly used at which places in Japan?

Kindergartens in Japan commonly use tulip-shaped name tags like this one. The emoji's flame-like outline puzzles many users, and its earliest version in 1999 was just a plain label.

Which Broadway musical that won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama do the emoji 🎤🇺🇸📜🤺 describe?

Hamilton tells a founding father's life through hip hop, R&B, pop and soul, right up to the duel with Aaron Burr that ends it. Burr narrates most of the show.

The red-faced, long-nosed 👺 emoji depicts which proud trickster figure from Japanese folklore?

Tengu were first imagined as raptors, and older art gives them avian and monkey features. The red face and long nose are now seen as their defining look.

The face in the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 'shruggie', a typed cousin of the 🤷 emoji, comes from which Japanese writing system?

Katakana supplies the character, tsu, whose strokes happen to look like a smirking face. The rest of the shrug is assembled from ordinary keyboard symbols and Unicode characters.

Which US resort city on the floor of the Mojave Desert do the emoji 🎰🎲💒🌵 describe?

Las Vegas took off after Nevada legalised casino gambling and cut the residency rule for a divorce to six weeks. The city now bills itself as the Entertainment Capital of the World.

Which breakfast emoji did Apple redraw with a filling after its plain first design was widely criticised?

Bagel lovers were quick to criticise the first version, which appeared in an iOS beta. Apple's replacement was more textured and came with a filling.

Which Reddit forum turned the emoji 💎🙌 into 'diamond hands', slang for refusing to sell a risky stock?

WallStreetBets users also say 'paper hands' for anyone who sells at the first sign of loss. Their slang turns stocks into 'stonks' and profits into 'tendies'.

The 🎴 emoji shows a card from which Japanese game, the product Nintendo was founded to make in 1889?

Hanafuda means 'flower cards', and the deck carries no numbers, only pictures to match. The emoji shows its full moon card against a red sky.

On several platforms the 💮 emoji carries Japanese text from a stamp teachers use to mark schoolwork as what?

Very well done is roughly what the characters say: teachers stamp it on exceptional work, often beside a score in red. The flower itself is a rosette-shaped cherry blossom.

In online slang, replying to a message with a single 🧢 emoji accuses the sender of doing what?

Lying is known as 'capping' in slang, which made the billed cap its symbol. Adding 'no 🧢' to a message does the opposite and insists that every word is true.