Posted
on July 17, 2016
Some
people joke as they tweet or post, today, “Wow, I have been waiting
ALL year to use these emojis:”
That's
because Apple products have a calendar emoji that looks like one of
those page-a-day calendars for July 17.
Of
course, you can use this emoji whenever you want to refer to a
calendar—not just today!—but the emoji DOES have a specific date.
And that date is today's date: July 17.
NOTE:
Not all emojis are the same. The emojis I showed above are from Apple
products such as an iPhone. Twitter's calendar emoji says July 15
(Twitter's birthday),
and Google's is just the number 12. Other calendar emojis show
monthly calendars instead of page-a-day calendars. Emojis just are
not the same everywhere, on all devices!
Why
does Apple's calendar emoji show today's date? July 17, 2002, is the
date that iCal premiered at a conference.
By the way, I have seen some people
calling July 17 International Emoji Calendar Day rather than
World Emoji Day.
A
short history of emojis
Emojis
are icons with meaning. They are ideograms – tiny little pictures
that symbolize facial expressions, weather, activities, animals,
objects, or other ideas.
The
word emoji comes from the Japanese “e” - which means
picture – joined with the Japanese “moji” - which means
character.
Emojis
were first introduced to the world on Japanese mobile phones in the
late 1990s. They really took off internationally when Apple released
an iPhone and an iPod Touch with an emoji keyboard. Soon Android
offered emojis as well.
Of
course, with every device and every app offering its own version of
emojis, and with manufacturers changing their emojis whenever it
suits them, there can be problems with miscommunication. For example,
all these dancers have a different feel:
 |
| Dancer emoji from Unicode, Apple, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft |
If
you choose one that looks right to you, for your particular message
and message recipient—you should realize that he or she might see
something entirely different. Maybe something entirely inappropriate,
confusing, even insulting!
I
think the Microsoft dancer on the far right could be chosen by
someone to mean “I'm so freaked out right now.” But if the
recipient gets a flamenco dancer in a red dress...well, the message
certainly changes, doesn't it?
What's
the difference between an emoji and an emoticon and a smiley?
An
emoticon is a representation of a facial expression using
punctuation and/or letters and numbers. It is generally used to
express your mood or change the meaning of a sentence. For example,
words that seem insulting gain a lighter, more humorous attitude,
either sarcasm or fond teasing, when coupled with a face with a huge
grin and another face with a wink:
:D ;)
Notice
that you generally read emoticons sideways.
Scott
Fahlman first used the emoticons :-) and :-( in 1982. The word
emoticon is a portmanteau of emotion and icon.
Many
emoticons have been created, including:
surprised face :o
angry
face >:(
sticking-tongue-out face :p
A
style of emoticons popularized by Japanese people are called kaomoji,
and they can be understood without tilting one's head. They also
sometimes contain arms or ears:
(x_x)
for stressed out
<(
^.^ )> for cute anime-looking face
\(^o^)/
for lifting both arms in a cheer
By
the way, there are some apps and devices that change an emoticon to
the corresponding emoji.
A
smiley is a happy face, a stylized version of a smiling human
face. It is generally yellow, circular, with black dots for eyes and
a black curve for the mouth. Since the introduction of the smiley
face in the early 1960s, there have certainly been many alternate
versions – different expressions and sometimes different colors –
and now there are lots of smileys and expressions available in
emojis. |
| Some modern smileys have 3-D shading and more complex cartoonish expressions |
Also
on this date:
Plan ahead:
Check
out my Pinterest boards for:
And
here are my Pinterest boards for:
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