Emojis: The Tiny Symbols That Speak Volumes

Emojis have become an integral part of our daily conversations. Our day often starts with a "Good morning" message accompanied by a sun ☀️ or other cheerful emoji, and ends with a sleepy face 😴. As the name suggests, emojis represent our moods and emotions. Isn’t it fascinating that we can express feelings using these tiny symbols?

But what exactly are emojis, and what’s the technical side behind them?

Let’s take a quick trip back to 1999. Emojis were created by Shigetaka Kurita, who designed the first set of 176 simple icons in Japan. In 2010, they went global when added to Unicode, a standard that ensures emojis appear consistently across different devices — much like a universal postal system for text.

The Technical Side:

Emojis aren’t images; they’re special text characters assigned unique Unicode codes (like U+1F602 for 😂). Unicode is a universal character encoding standard that ensures text — including emojis — looks consistent across devices and platforms. When you send an emoji, your device sends this unique Unicode point, and the receiving device translates it into its own visual interpretation of the emoji — like ordering the same burger 🍔 from different restaurants, each with its own style.

Each emoji is mapped to a hexadecimal Unicode point, and different operating systems (like iOS, Android, and Windows) use their own fonts and graphic styles to render them. This is why the same emoji can look slightly different across devices.

Despite their popularity, emojis have faced challenges, including inconsistent designs, slow updates, and varying cultural meanings. While diversity has improved with more skin tones and gender options , emojis like 🙏 can still cause confusion across devices and cultures .

Fun Fact:

You can even use Unicode to type special characters in Microsoft Word! Simply type the Unicode and press Alt + X. Here are some fun examples:

• ☺ (U+263A) — Smiley Face

• ♥ (U+2665) — Heart Symbol

• ☂ (U+2602) — Umbrella

• ✈ (U+2708) — Airplane

• ☕ (U+2615) — Coffee Cup