Emoji Definition A yellow face with wide eyes and a slanted scowl, as if it were scrunching its cheeks or biting its lips. A hesitant expression.... Emoji are graphic images that can be used in email, social media posts, and other forms of communication for making jokes about things that may not be funny to others. They first appeared in 2008 as part of the release of iOS 3.0, but they didn't reach global popularity until 2012, when Twitter started using them in some of its tweets. Since then, they've become one of the most popular ways for people to express themselves through text alone. There are several types of emojis: standard, graphical, facial, and animal. Standard emojis include cars, faces, buildings, and other visual representations you can find in any dictionary. Facial emojis show different expressions on human faces. These include happy, angry, sad, surprised, disgusted, guilty, and many more. Animal emojis include lions, tigers, bears, and other animals from around the world. They're used in entertainment, such as cartoons and video games, to show what type of animal is following you or shot by you. Humans have created many other types of emojis, including food ones and objects used in activities such as sports.