But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids Who invented emoji?
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May 16, 2025 Join Paul Galloway, a collection specialist at MoMA and emoji author, as he chats about the colorful journey of emojis from their 1990s origins in Japan to becoming integral in modern messaging. Learn about how these tiny images enhance our communication, the intricacies of emoji coding, and the role of Emojipedia in deciphering their meanings. Plus, discover the creative process behind new emoji designs and whether they should be considered art!
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Origin of Emoji in Japan
- Emoji were invented in Japan in the 1990s for pagers and cell phones by a company named NTT Docomo.
- The first emoji included simple symbols like a heart to replace number codes youth used to communicate.
Emoji Communication Complexity
- Sending emoji involves sending a code that phones interpret differently depending on the device.
- This variation caused communication issues before standardization by Unicode.
Unicode Standardizes Emoji
- Unicode standardizes emoji codes so they display consistently across devices worldwide.
- This standardization enables people everywhere to see the same emoji images despite different hardware.