MUMBAI, 28 OCTOBER, 2020 (GPN): Words have always been the starting point for expressing yourself, but in today’s day and age, words alone just don’t cut it. Over the last five years, Twitter has seen new ways of communicating on the service, with GIFs, memes, videos, and more, but perhaps the most friendly and easy-to-use way of expressing oneself has become the emoji. From a combination of punctuation marks 🙂 and then a small (mostly-yellow) symbol, emojis have become some of the most relatable symbols on the internet, representing different and diverse aspects of our lives.

This #InternationalInternetDay, as we celebrate the evolution of conversations on the internet, here is a look at how custom emojis on Twitter have come to connect with Indians from across the country. 

While people on Twitter have always had access to a standard set of emojis, specific hashtags at different periods of time have activated a limited-time emoji for special occasions to delight people on Twitter, sparking conversations.

Custom emojis in India were first launched on the service in 2015 with 13 creative symbols to connect with audiences. Taking a cue from the popularity of these emojis, over the years this grew to 39 in 2016, 62 in 2017, 39 in 2018, 86 in 2019, and 50 in 2020 till September. 

Looking back, Twitter in India has introduced several custom emojis that emphasise aspects of local culture, entertainment, sports and current affairs in the country. 

Sports fandom in India is extremely active. Tournaments and sports leagues give people the opportunity to express their views and converse and connect with like-minded fans on the service. Owing to the massive popularity of this segment, 43% of the custom emojis on Twitter in India have belonged to the sports vertical. 

Indian Twitter has witnessed massive growth in conversations around movies, TV, music and lifestyle, which is whyaround 11% of the custom emojis launched on the service are around entertainment.

Audiences on Twitter love to celebrate festivals and diverse cultures on the service. Adding momentum to these stimulating conversations, several emojis have allowed Indians to connect with various aspects of their culture. Till date, 32 emojis reflected various aspects about Indian culture. 

Similarly, around 27 emojis related to current affairs and news moments such as assembly and state elections have been introduced. 

Thanks to influential, leaned-in audiences that shape conversations, Twitter has become the go-to space for brands across sectors to launch new products and connect with their consumers. Custom emojis play a fundamental role in bringing these campaigns alive. 26% of the custom emojis launched in India are in service of brands and their campaigns.

These “Indian emojis” are not just popular at home. Several emojis that are relevant to Indian audiences have gained international popularity as they cross national boundaries connecting with the diaspora too. For example, the #GaneshChaturthi emoji in 2016 became a global trend and the launch of the emoji of the Rajnikanth movie #Kaala in 2018 trended in multiple geographies.

As Twitter serves the public conversation, encouraging positive, diverse points of view, emojis provide a fun way for anyone to express themselves on the service. 

EMOJIS AT A GLANCE: AN OVERVIEW 

• Since 2015, there are almost 300 India centric customemojis 
• Among these, almost 68% emojis were introduced for special Indian events and moment, for example, Independence Day, #CWC19, Indian festivals, and national and assembly elections. 
• The first-ever Indian emoji was the #MakeInIndia emoji, introduced in Nov 2015.

• In 2016, the first-ever emoji activated by Indian languages was introduced. This emoji, launched for Diwali 2016, could be activated with Hindi hashtags #दीपावली or #दिवाली, in addition to the English hashtags #HappyDiwali, #HappyDeepavali, #Diwali, and #Deepavali. Over the years, several festival-related and cultural emojis have been activated by hashtags in various Indian languages including Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada
• In April 2017, Twitter for the first-ever time came up with a custom personalised IPL emoji for all 30

players as part of the 10th anniversary celebrations of IPL. 

• In the same month, the first-ever #AmbedkarJayanti emoji was launched on Twitter. An emoji representing Babasaheb Ambedkar appeared in Tweets with hashtags like #AmbedkarJayanti and #अंबेडकरजयंती 

Embeddable Tweet Link: https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/852462212048236544

• The first-ever weather focused emoji was an umbrella during #Monsoon2017, which allowed audiences to express their love for a favourite season. Other hashtags associated with the emoji included #Monsoon2017, #Monsoon, #IndiaRains, #Baarish, #बारिश #MumbaiRains, #DelhiRains, #BengaluruRains, #HyderabadRains, #ChennaiRains and #AhmedabadRains

• One of Twitter India’s biggest social initiatives #PowerOf18 aimed at encouraging the youth of India to contribute to public debate and participate in civic engagement, and also received its own emoji. 

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1061882529236557824

• In Sports, Mithali Raj (@M_Raj03) was the first woman cricketer from India to get an emoji, and during the Women’s Cricket World Cup in June 2017, Indians supported their captain by making her the most Tweeted about captain globally, topping the Twitter Emoji Leaderboard.

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/ICC/status/878576622970048513

• This year, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) became the first Indian film to receive a custom emoji to commemorate the silver anniversary of the film.The emoji could be activated using the hashtags #DDLJ, #DDLJ25, #25YearsOfDDLJ, #DilwaleDulhaniaLeJayenge and #डीडीएलजे. 

Embeddable Tweet Link: https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1318437648663339010

• Encouraging positive conversations on the service, Twitter India and Anushka Sharma (@AnushkaSharma) together launched the #HappyTweets campaign to spread joy amongst people. The campaign was also supported with a custom heart emoji.

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1202117415246544896?s=20 

• In 2020, faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, audiences on Indian Twitter took a trip down the memory lane and threw-back to some iconic moments from the ‘90s. To celebrate these conversations, Twitter India launched an emoji that reminded everyone of the decade. The emoji was activated by using three hashtags – #BackToThe90s, #90sLove, and #90sNostalgia 

Embeddable Tweet:https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1260850009089572864?s=20 

• Several product launches and brand campaigns have been successfully undertaken on the service. However, the first brand to get an emoji was Maruti Nexa (@NexaExperience) (in Jan 2017) followed by Vivo India (@Vivo_India) later that month. 

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/NexaExperience/status/819729476749819904

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/Vivo_India/status/821371178241638401

• Several brands have conceptualised campaigns that have leveraged the conversational nature of the service to bring about a positive change. One such campaign was the  #LoveMovesForward campaign by Uber India. With the intention to spearhead love and acceptance, and building into their broader mission of “Move Forward”, the company used the opportunity of Valentine’s Day 2019, to advocate for #LoveMovesForward and petitioned Unicode (the Emoji consortium) to create a new pride, rainbow-coloured heart emoji 

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/Uber_India/status/1095367504543633408?s=20 

SPORTS RELATED EMOJIS: FROM THE STADIUM TO THE INTERNET

• During the 2016 @ICC World Twenty20 tournament, Twitter introduced three emojis along with the hashtags #WT20, #AskCaptain, or #WT20Heroes in addition to the 16 hashflag emojis, allowing people from all over the world to support their teams. 

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/ICC/status/706809491224989696

• Celebrations for the 10th anniversary of IPL were taken up a notch when for the first-ever time Twitter created custom IPL emojis for 30 players. MS Dhoni (@msdhoni) and Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) topped the chart of the 10 most-used hashtags for player emojis that year. 

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/IPL/status/849510627110506496

• During #CWC19, Twitter introduced special jersey emojis representing all 10 teams and their captains. #TeamIndia topped the charts in the Twitter Emoji Index.

Embeddable Tweet:  https://twitter.com/cricketworldcup/status/1133845749027024898

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/cricketworldcup/status/1133846210622709762

ENTERTAINMENT EMOJIS – FROM THE BIG SCREEN TO YOUR PHONE SCREEN 

• The first Indian movie to get an emoji was Befikre in 2016. Fans could activate the emoji using the hashtags  by using #UdeDilBefikre, #Befikre, #BefikreOn9th, #BefikreOn9thDec and #BeBefikre 

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/befikrethefilm/status/796956513508147200

• The first TV show to get an emoji was Bigg Boss that same year. The classic Bigg Boss ‘eye’ logo emoji could be activated using the hashtags #BB10, #BiggBoss and #BiggBoss10

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/787602771000168448

• Salman Khan (@BeingSalmanKhan) was the first Hindi film celebrity to have an emoji inspired by his character in #Tubelight in May 2017.

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/twitterindia/status/864398758846513153

• South superstar Vijay (@actorvijay) became the second film star to receive a custom emoji, based on his character from the movie #Mersal (August 2017) 

Embeddable Tweet:https://twitter.com/twitterindia/status/898465872024444928?lang=en

• Till date, around 15 emojis have been introduced on Twitter to get people excited about the launch of various Indian movies. 
• Similarly, Hindi movies like #MissionMangal, #Saaho, #Bharat, #Judwaa2, #ZeroFilm, #JabHarryMetSejal, #URI and #GoldMovie have had custom emojis designed to garner increased engagement with audiences on the platform. In addition to #Mersal, Tamil blockbuster movies such as #Kaala2018, #NGK also had an emoji for the launch of the movies on the platform. In January 2020 people could Tweet with #DarbarEmoji for South Indian superstar Rajinikanth’s (@rajinikanth) movie
• To reach enthusiasts, the Filmfare Awards (@filmfare) and the IIFA Awards (@IIFA) had emojis representing the iconic award trophies – the Black lady and the golden IIFA award. 

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1009667516602335232

• Of course, the fashion world is also a source of style and entertainment for many, and in partnership with #LakmeFashionWeek, Indian fashion was given its first custom emoji of a little red dress. 

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/897732771115917312