Emoji turns 10: Rajini, Vadivelu stickers a rage on WhatsApp

Last week, the humble ‘emoji’ turned 10. Raymond Sepulveda, Angela Guzman and Ollie Wagner were the three designers who created the original set of emojis in Apple. Over the years, the total number of emojis has increased from 471 to 2,776 in 2018. 

Recent add-ons to emojis on popular messaging platform recently have been GIFs and stickers. 

While GIFs have been around the Internet for a while, the quirky use of local and personalised stickers are the rage today amongst youngsters. Be it Vadivelu with his iconic ‘Vada Poche’ expression, Vijayakanth in his yoga poses, or Iron Man asking the Avengers to assemble, they have overtaken emoji usage of late, especially in India, which is the largest user base for WhatsApp. 

Stickers in regional languages and the custom option – users can create stickers from their own gallery from selfies, pictures of friends and so on – are hugely popular. 

From Sachin Tendulkar to Rajinikanth, even celebrities love them, often using them on social media to express their emotions succinctly (or with a touch of sarcasm). 

Today, emojis are used on various mobile operating systems, as well as platforms like Google Hangouts and Facebook Messenger. “They have turned into a signature firm of communication for the millennials. Even older people who embrace technology have taken to the wide selection of icons,” remarks social media manager Ram Thilak, who promotes a number of brands in the city. Emojis have become so ubiquitous that they have even been named in the Oxford dictionary’s word of the year.