World Emoji Day 2018

Today is World Emoji Day — an unofficial holiday celebrated on July 17. Said to be a "global celebration of emoji" it is marked with various events and products released for the occasion.

The word Emoji means picture letter and is a a small digital image or icon by which an idea or emotion may be expressed in electronic communication.

Emoticons are pictoral representations of facial expressions usually formed by keystroke combinations like ;-) for the purpose of conveying feelings or tone.

The world in all it's facebook, twitter, and social media glory has embraced these in electronic communication for whatever value they may personally glean from their use.

The cutesy cutesy of it all having been lost on me back in the 80s, what was once a fad is now quite the mainstream social media lemming bulwark and there is even a study of emoji use by persons in states ranked by popularity.

Okay, maybe I am a word purist and maybe I could at least try to be a little more fun and YES, I have used both the emoticon and the emoji in various past lives ... but really and truly my cutesy phase ended some forty years ago and though I personally now fail to see the allure — by all means the rest of you go for it.