Emoji history
1999
Birth in Japan
NTT DoCoMo designer Shigetaka Kurita created early pictographs for i-mode.
2010
Unicode 6.0
Emojis entered the Unicode Standard, enabling cross-platform support.
2015
Diversity & 😂
Skin tone modifiers arrived; Face With Tears of Joy was Oxford’s Word of the Year.
2020
Inclusive designs
Gender-neutral options and more representation in people emojis.
2023–2025
Unicode 15–17
New symbols, ZWJ families, and expressive faces continue to expand the set.