International Internet Day: Twitter shares history of custom Indian emojis

International Internet Day is celebrated on October 29 to celebrate the history of telecommunications and technology. The internet may reside more deeply with the Gen-Z crowd but it has a wide span of audience barring different age groups. On this International Internet Day, Twitter has shared the history of all its emojis in India.

Twitter is one of the biggest internet companies out there, and the biggest platform where conversations happen. It regularly introduces custom emojis to mark special occasions locally, and globally. These emojis have different themes ranging from festivities and celebration, movie launches, sports events, to branded emojis, and others. Twitter launched the first set of custom emojis in India back in 2015. By 2016, Twitter had 39 custom emojis which grew to 62 in 2017, 39 in 2018, and 50 this year.

Sports is one of the most popular events discussed on Twitter, and it occupies 435 of the custom emojis on the platform. Speaking of which, the first IPL emoji was launched in 2017, and for all 30 players. Custom emojis on conversations around TV, music and lifestyle take up around 11%.

Twitter has launched 32 emojis about Indian culture, and 27 related to current affairs and news. Brands and campaigns also hold a strong 26% of the total custom emojis on twitter.

Twitter has around 300 India centric custom emojis so far. The first custom emoji it introduced was the Make In India emoji in November, 2015.

It later introduced emojis that could be activated using different Indian languages. This was first introduced with Diwali in 2016 which is also the first-ever crowdsourced emoji.

Twitter has custom emojis for more major Indian festivals such as Ganesh Chathurti, Eid, Vishu, and Guru Nanak Jayanti. Twitter also highlighted that the Ganesh Chathurti emoji from 2016 became a global trend, and so did Rajnikanth’s Kaala movie emoji in 2018.

Later in 2017, Twitter introduced its first weather focused emoji which was an umbrella for the Monsoon season.

Twitter launched the first custom emoji for an Indian movie, and it was for Befikre in 2016. This year, DDLJ was the first movie to get a custom emoji as part of its 25th anniversary. Twitter has so far launched around 15 emojis for Indian movies. Indian TV shows like The Family Man, Mirzapur, and Indian Matchmaking also received custom emojis on Twitter.

This year, Twitter’s custom emoji were largely related to the pandemic and the events that occurred around it. In May, it launched the gratitude emoji in different Indian languages, and the Stay At Home emoji as well. Twitter also launched a back to the 90s campaign with a custom emoji.