The faces, hearts and symbols people actually use, gathered for World Emoji Day on July 17, for captions, quizzes and posts about emoji themselves. Copy any of them with one tap.
World Emoji Day falls on July 17, and the date is not arbitrary. ๐ the calendar emoji shows July 17 on Apple platforms, a nod to the date iCal was announced in 2002, and Emojipedia founder Jeremy Burge picked it when he started the day in 2014. That makes ๐ the single most on-topic glyph of the occasion. The rest of the set is simply what people use most: ๐ has been the most-used emoji worldwide for years running, ๐ took over from it for laughter among younger users before starting to cool off, and โค๏ธ๐ฅโจ sit near the top of nearly every usage ranking published. Unicode and vendors often time new emoji announcements to the day, so it doubles as the moment the next batch gets previewed.
The ๐ Calendar emoji on Apple devices displays July 17, chosen because Apple announced iCal on that date at Macworld Expo in 2002. Jeremy Burge, who founded Emojipedia, took the date from the glyph itself and declared the first World Emoji Day in 2014. It has since picked up its own awards show, the World Emoji Awards, and vendors now schedule emoji news around it. The circularity of a holiday taken from an emoji that depicts the holiday's date is the best fact on this page.
What To Post On World Emoji Day
The format that travels is a personal ranking: your five most-used emoji, pulled straight from the frequently-used row on your keyboard. It is specific, it is different for everyone, and it invites replies. Brands tend to post a emoji-only version of their tagline, which works once. Quizzes built from emoji rebuses also do well, and pairing ๐ with a cropped image is the standard tease format. Whatever you post, ๐ belongs in it somewhere.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is World Emoji Day?โผ
July 17 every year. The date comes from the ๐ calendar emoji, which shows July 17 on Apple platforms, and the day was created by Emojipedia founder Jeremy Burge in 2014. It is now when many new emoji announcements are made.
What is the most used emoji in the world?โผ
๐ Face with Tears of Joy has topped global usage rankings for several years running, according to Unicode's own frequency data. ๐ and ๐ฅน have grown quickly among younger users, but neither has displaced it at the overall top spot.
How many emoji are there?โผ
Counts vary with how you tally skin tones and flag sequences, but Unicode lists several thousand distinct emoji, and new batches are approved roughly once a year. Our own database covers the ones with full detail pages, which is a deliberately curated subset.
