Emojis have a come a long way since the days when we winked at each other with a semicolon, dash, and parenthesis. The website emojipedia.org reports that as of September 2021, there were more than 3,600 unique emojis in the Unicode Standard. They fall into eight categories, including Smileys and People, Animals and Nature, Food and Drink, Activity, Travel and Places, Objects, Symbols, and Flags.

To the uninitiated, the diversity of emojis to choose from can be surprising. There are dozens of different faces beyond the standard smiley, such as Nauseated Face, Confounded Face, and Money-Mouth Face. There is Waving Hand, Raised Hand, and Vulcan Salute. A wide variety of foods, such as Pretzel, Hamburger, and Pizza, are available, as are emojis related to various events such as a birthday, a graduation, or a wedding.