World Emoji Day

World Emoji Day is an unofficial holiday celebrated on July 17. The day is deemed a "global celebration of emoji" and is primarily celebrated online.

World Emoji Day is "the brainchild of Jeremy Burge" according to CNBC who stated that "London-based founder of Emojipedia created it" in 2014.

The New York Times states that Burge created this on "July 17 based on the way the calendar emoji is shown on iPhones”. For the first World Emoji Day, Burge told The Independent "there were no formal plans put in place" other than choosing the date.

On World Emoji Day 2015, Pepsi launched PepsiMoji which included an emoji keyboard and custom World Emoji Day Pepsi cans and bottles. These were originally released in Canada, but expanded to 100 markets in 2016.

Sony Pictures Animation used World Emoji Day 2016 to announce T. J. Miller as the first cast member for The Emoji Movie. Google released “a series of new emoji that are more inclusive of women from diverse backgrounds and all walks of life”, and Emojipedia used July 17 to launch the first World Emoji Awards.

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Wikipedia