*By Alisha Haridasani*
Apparently the texting world was very contemplative this year.
According to an online survey, the ‘Thinking Face’ emoji best describes 2018ーmaking it the winner of the Best Emoji of the Year in Emojipedia’s annual awards honoring World Emoji Day.
The other honoree was the ‘Exploding Head,' which won for Best New Emoji.
“These are put out to a popular vote, we put it out to the whole World Emoji Day network,” said Jeremy Burge, Chief Emoji Officer at Emojipedia. “This is the will of the people."
Voting was open for two weeks and closed on Tuesday.
Apple also marked World Emoji Day by revealing that dozens of new emojis will be added to iOS 12 later this year.
Redheads, bald people, and people with graying hair are among Apple’s newcomersーpart of the company’s latest attempts to increase diversity and inclusion among its slate of emojis, said Burge.
A peacock, a caped superhero, a cupcake, and the surprisingly popular mango were also added to iOS 12.
“There are so many mango fans out there,” explained Burge. “Mango’s popular, trust me.”
Apple integrated emojis onto its platform in 2012, catalyzing significant growth in usage, said Burge. In the years since, emojis have rapidly become universal symbols for laughter, love, anger...and whatever the folded hands mean.
There are currently almost 3,000 emojis approved by encoding organization Unicode, and most of them ー around 2,300 ー are used daily. According to data released by Facebook last week, over 900 million emoji-only messages are sent over the Messenger app every day. Emojis even shape our email habits: analytics company Leanplum reports emails with emojis are opened 66 percent more often than emails without the symbols.
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/winners-of-2018-emoji-awards-revealed)
A survey by the BMO Real Financial Progress Index found that 25 percent of Americans are pulling back on retirement contributions to offset the cost of inflation. This comes as market volatility reduced retirement savings with the S&P 500 shedding more than 12 percent this year alone.
Catching you up on entertainment headlines with Johnny Depp winning more damages in his defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard, Jada Pinkett Smith addressing the infamous Oscars slap that her husband Will Smith laid on Chris Rock, Queen Elizabeth II celebrating her platinum jubilee on the throne, and more.
Eric Cervini, executive producer of 'The Book of Queer,' joins Cheddar News to talk about the new show on Discovery+ that's celebrating LGBTQ+ history.
New York drag queen DD Fuego, joined Cheddar News to discuss her journey to drag, sharing the coloring book "Find Your Fuego" to explain to kids and adults alike what drag is all about, and describing the Big Apple scene. "It's incredible because you're meeting people for the first time, and you're also sharing a piece of you, and they're sharing with you back, and it's instant, and it's so intimate, but it's also art," she said. "It's theater!" In celebrating this spirit, Cheddar employee Shannon also received a "fantastic" makeover from DD Fuego.
Memorial Day rang in the unofficial start of summer here in the United States -- and with it, the unofficial start of summer travel. Whether consumers traveled by air or by land, they probably experienced some form of frustration over the weekend. Flyers faced delays and cancellations, and drivers faced the most expensive gas prices ever recorded on Memorial Day. Zach Griff, Senior Aviation Reporter for the Points Guy, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Next-generation gaming ecosystem Joystick recently raised $8 million in a seed round and is in the process of raising a $110 million Series A funding round. Gaming ecosystems are a relatively new type of platform in the Web3 space, allowing users to maximize their play-to-earn gaming opportunities, exchange crypto-currencies, and sell their digital assets. Joystick says its platform is flipping the current model on its head by giving players the opportunity to keep 100% of the revenue they earn. Robin Defay, co-founder and CEO of Joystick, and Michael Le, co-founder of Joystick and TikTok content creator, join Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
The dating app Bumble has sponsored bills and pushed lawmakers to criminalize the online practice of sending unsolicited nudes or “cyberflashing." Payton Iheme, Bumble's head of public policy for the Americas, joined Cheddar News to discuss why the app was going after the harassing behavior beyond its own platform. "Now, while we went to work internally in the company, and we created something called private detector to automatically blur those images so the user can decide if they want to see them, there's nothing for the rest of the internet," she said. "And so that's why we went to work with these laws."
'Top Gun: Maverick' making an estimated $156 million domestically for its four-day opening weekend. Daniel Loria, SVP of Content Strategy and Editorial Director at Boxoffice Pro, joins Cheddar News to weigh in on the long-awaited sequel and the summer box office.
