Who created World Emoji Day?

Who created World Emoji Day? Jeremy Burge created it. He launched the annual celebration in 2014 as a way to recognize emoji as a growing form of digital communication and popular culture.

The date, July 17, was chosen because Apple’s calendar emoji displays that date on many of its platforms. World Emoji Day is not an official United Nations holiday or a Unicode Consortium observance; it began as an initiative associated with Burge and Emojipedia.

Burge is also known for founding Emojipedia, an online reference guide to emoji meanings, histories, and platform designs. His work helped explain why the same Unicode emoji can look different on Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and other systems.

A common mix-up is confusing the creator of World Emoji Day with Shigetaka Kurita, who designed an influential 176-character emoji set for NTT DoCoMo in 1999. Kurita helped shape modern emoji, but Burge created the celebration.