EMOJIS EXPLAINED

Defined as a small digital icon used to express an idea or emotion, emojis are not to be confused with emoticons facial representations created using keys available on the phone.

The first emojis were created in 1999 by Japanese artist Shigetaka Kurita. Unicode Consortium, a non-profit group that maintains text standards across computers, recognised emojis in 2010, propelling its widespread adoption. In 2015, Oxford Dictionaries named the face with tears of Joy emoji shown above the word of the year.