World Emoji Day is celebrated on July 17 every year, a day dedicated to the tiny pictures that now carry so much of how we talk online. The next World Emoji Day is Saturday, July 17, 2027. Watch the live countdown above and get your best emoji-only messages ready.
Why July 17? Look at your calendar emoji
World Emoji Day was created in 2014 by Jeremy Burge, the founder of Emojipedia, the reference site that catalogs every emoji. He picked July 17 because of the calendar emoji. On Apple devices, that icon has long shown the date July 17, a nod to the day in 2002 when Apple introduced its iCal calendar app. Because so many people saw July 17 on the little calendar every day, it was a natural fit.
The date is fixed, so World Emoji Day can land on any day of the week. Because it falls during summer break for most US schools, it lives mostly online: in group chats, on social feeds and in tech news.
A very short history of emoji
The word emoji comes from Japanese: e (picture) and moji (character). It has nothing to do with the English word “emotion,” despite the resemblance. Japanese mobile carriers introduced picture characters in the late 1990s. The best-known early set was designed by Shigetaka Kurita for NTT Docomo in 1999: 176 simple icons, each just 12 by 12 pixels. In 2016 the Museum of Modern Art in New York added that original set to its collection.
Emoji went global after they were added to the Unicode Standard in 2010, which allowed them to work across different phones and operating systems. Today the Unicode Consortium reviews proposals for new emoji, and anyone can submit one. In 2015, Oxford Dictionaries even named the “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji its Word of the Year.
What happens on World Emoji Day
- Tech companies often preview the new emoji coming to their devices; Apple has used the day for announcements since 2017.
- Emojipedia shares data and trends about which emoji are rising or falling in popularity.
- Brands, museums and sports teams post emoji-only messages and quizzes on social media.
Fun ways to join in
- Emoji movie quiz: describe a film using only emoji and make your friends guess it.
- Emoji-only chat hour: challenge your group chat to go one hour without typing a single word.
- Story challenge: retell a story or a historical event in ten emoji, then explain your choices.
- Design your own: sketch the emoji you wish existed and read the Unicode proposal guidelines to see what it would take.
- Check your stats: look at your keyboard’s “frequently used” row; it says a lot about you.
A small tip: the same emoji can look quite different on different platforms, and meanings vary between age groups and cultures. If a message really matters, a few words alongside the emoji help.
Share the countdown
Running a social media team or a summer camp activity? Share this countdown link or embed the widget on your site so everyone sees the date coming. If you like playful days, World Smile Day in October, whose founder drew the original yellow smiley, is a natural follow-up.