The humble emoji have become so ingrained in our daily lives that we rarely give them a second thought. But did you know that these wonderful characters have their own special day dedicated to them? And that day is today! (July 17th). Launched in 2014, World Emoji Day is the creation of Emojipedia founder Jeremy Burge.

Not many people know, but emojis have been around since the late 90s originally appearing on Japanese mobile phones. However, they really exploded onto the international scene in 2011 with the release of Apple’s iOS 5 and Android following suit soon after. Once people figured out how to enable these little characters they began appearing everywhere.

Fast forward to 2017 and there are currently 2,666 standard emojis available with billions sent across all platforms each day. Facebook has given us a good insight into this activity by creating this handy infographic showing the staggering number of emojis sent through the platform on a daily basis.

The infographic also shows the emojis which are most frequently used both worldwide and in selected countries. Although Ireland is not included, we have a fair idea of what the most popular emojis are on these shores!

Credit: Facebook

facebookworldemojidayinfographic