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About this page
Emojis began as a small set of simple pictographs and grew into a global visual language used in billions of messages every day. Their history spans early Japanese mobile carriers, the adoption of Unicode, and the steady expansion of categories and skin-tone options.
Understanding where emojis came from explains why they look and behave the way they do today, including why the same emoji can appear differently across devices and why new ones are added each year.
Frequently asked questions
Where did emojis come from?
Emojis originated on Japanese mobile phones in the late 1990s as a compact way to add emotion and meaning to short text messages.
Why were emojis added to Unicode?
Encoding emojis in Unicode let them work consistently across different phones, operating systems, and apps instead of being locked to one carrier.
Why do new emojis appear every year?
The Unicode Consortium reviews proposals and periodically approves new emojis to reflect language, culture, and user demand.
Why do emojis look different on each device?
Each company designs its own emoji artwork for the same underlying code point, so the style varies between Apple, Google, Samsung, and others.