Origin of a Feces: A Not-So-Brief History of the Poop Emoji
Starship captain, Shakespearean thespian, and real-life knight Sir Patrick Stewart lends his gravitas to The Emoji Movie—out today—as the voice of Poop, a debonair dump. We traced the poomoji’s rise from B-list BM to No. 1 number two.
June 1984
Japanese manga series Dr. Slump debuts Poop-Boy, a chattering pile whose coiled design will influence the future soft-serve emoji.
September 2000
Telecom company KDDI launches the first unchi emoji—Japanese for poop.
October 2008
Google introduces an animated load orbited by flies for Japanese webmail users. Poo: big in Japan.
April 2015
Software company SwiftKey reports that Canadians deploy the ordurous emoji more than anybody else.
December 2015
The emoji’s popularity is explosive; Google trades its fly-swarmed turd for the more approachable grinning swirl.
November 2016
An election year splash: Pranksters plop a beaming poop emoji onto Trump’s campaign website.
January 2017
Sony announces Sir Patrick Poo-ert—err, Stewart—as Emoji’s dark horse. Director Tony Leondis says he sought “the perfect upper-crust gentleman.”
July 2017
The Emoji Movie premieres starring James Corden (Hi-5), Sofia Vergara (Flamenca), and newbie Jude Kouyate in his breakout role, Poop Junior.
This article appears in the August issue. Subscribe now.
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