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Why World Emoji Day is super confusing

Declaring July 17 to be World Emoji Day makes perfect sense for iPhone users, but others may be wondering why the internet didn't celebrate the whimsical icons two days ago.

Calendar icon on iOS shows July 17, but it's July 15 on the Twitter desktop website

The emoji for the calendar shows different dates on iOS and on Twitter.com. (Apple/Twitter)

Declaring July 17 to be World Emoji Day makes perfect sense for iPhone users, but others may be wondering why the internet didn't celebrate the whimsical icons two days ago. 

On iOS, the operating system for iPhones and iPads, both calendar emojis, the monthly calendar and the tear-off daily caldendar, show the date July 17. 

However, the Twitter website, when viewed on a desktop computer, shows those same emojis with the date July 15 (check out the small emoji in the text of the tweet below). 

Just to add to the confusion, on Android devices, the monthly calendar shows no date and the tear-off one shows a "12" with no month. 

But Emojipedia, the online resource for all things emoji, went with Apple's interpretation of the calendar when it declared July 17 to be World Emoji Day

As explained on the World Emoji Day website, the reason the iOS and Twitter representations are different can be traced to corporate history. Twitter was launched July 15, 2006, while the Apple program iCal was unveiled at Macworld Expo on July 17, 2002. 

As with any Twitter trend these days, brands were quick to jump on the bandwagon. 

The emoji character set is always being updated by the Unicode consortium. Recently, the Canadian flag emoji was added to Apple's version, but the same emoji still displays as the letters "CA" on Twitter.com. 

Canadians, as it turns out, are big fans of emojis, especially the smiling poop