Definition
Emoji are small digital icons and symbols used in digital communication to express emotions, ideas, and concepts. Originally developed in Japan in 1999 by Shigetaka Kurita, emoji are now standardized by the Unicode Consortium and supported across all major platforms. For creators, emoji serve multiple strategic functions: they improve thumbnail readability, increase email subject line open rates, add personality to social media captions, and help break up long-form text. YouTube titles and descriptions that include relevant emoji can improve click-through rates by adding visual variety in search results.