The Birth of Emoji — How a Small Japanese Symbol Changed the World

How did emoji come to be? The story of how Shigetaka Kurita's 176 original emoji from 1999 became a global language.

The Birth of Emoji: A Story That Started in Japan

Today, we use emoji dozens of times a day. We add ❤️ to messages, sprinkle ✨ into Instagram captions, and drop 😂 in YouTube comments. But emoji wasn't always a global language.

1999: A Small Office in Japan

The story of emoji (絵文字, meaning "picture character") begins in 1999 in Japan. A young developer at NTT DoCoMo named Shigetaka Kurita was frustrated with the limitations of mobile text messages. Text alone couldn't convey emotion, and it was hard to display information like weather forecasts concisely.

Drawing inspiration from Japanese manga, road signs, and Chinese characters, he created 176 icons at 12x12 pixels each. These were the world's first emoji.

The original emoji looked very different from today's. Hearts, weather symbols, phones, and clock icons made up most of the set. The resolution was primitive compared to today's full-color designs. But user response was explosive — being able to express emotion in text was revolutionary.

The iPhone Changed Everything

When the iPhone launched in 2007, and emoji keyboards became standard in iOS 5 in 2011, emoji spread beyond Japan to the entire world. Initially a feature for Japanese users, American users discovered emoji and fell in love with them, triggering a global trend overnight.

If Apple adding emoji to the keyboard was a game changer, then the Unicode Consortium standardizing emoji made them a truly international language. Unicode, the nonprofit organization that manages text encoding globally, began including emoji in its standard starting in 2010.

Standardization and the Unicode Era

With emoji in the Unicode standard, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and all major platforms began supporting the same emoji set. Of course, designs differ by platform. When you send ❤️, it appears as Apple's distinctive red heart on iPhone, but as Google's design on Android. Same character, different appearance — that's why.

Currently, the Unicode standard includes over 3,000 emoji, with new ones added annually. In 2023, additions included 🫨 (shaking face), 🫎 (moose), and 🪿 (goose).

Why Emoji Became a Language

Linguists see emoji as modern hieroglyphics. Just as ancient Egyptians drew pictures on walls to tell stories, modern people express emotions through emoji on smartphone screens.

Emoji's greatest strength is crossing language barriers. When someone sees 😂, whether they're Korean, American, or Brazilian, they understand it means laughter. Cultural nuances may vary slightly, but basic emotional expressions are universal.

The Future of Emoji

Emoji continues to evolve. Skin tone options were added for diversity, and gender-neutral emoji are increasing. Cultural diversity is being reflected through food, clothing, and festival emoji additions.

From 176 small pixels in 1999 to over 3,000 emoji used billions of times daily — Kurita could never have imagined this when he was drawing pixel by pixel.

At EmojiPick, you can copy any of these historic emoji with a single click. Express yourself more richly today! 😊

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