Welcome to the World's First EmojiCon

Recently, poop emojis and smiley faces took centrestage at the inaugural EmojiCon in San Francisco. Held over the course of three days, the event served as a platform for emoji fans, designers, officials from Unicode Consortium (a council of sorts that decides what is cool enough to be turned into an emoji) and vendors with emoji-related merchandises (*cough* an eggplant-shaped toy anyone? *cough*) to geek out.

There were photobooths for visitors to fulfill their selfie quota...

#emojicon @greenmo10 @anukool1 ?????#onlyinsf Thanks for the ?tickets, @producthunt!
A photo posted by Natalie Venuto (@natalievenuto) on Nov 5, 2016 at 5:51am PDT

An interesting display of emoji art...

Emoji art #emojicon
A photo posted by Olivia Solon (@oliviasolon) on Nov 5, 2016 at 1:59pm PDT

#emojicon
A photo posted by Olivia Solon (@oliviasolon) on Nov 5, 2016 at 6:11pm PDT

Emoji-themed food that is Instagram-worthy...

Emoji foods at #EmojiCon party??? pic.twitter.com/KJYWMaJRdj
— スタンバイサブロー (@stanbysaburo) November 5, 2016

And grinning poop. Grinning poop, everywhere.

Oh boy. Right outta the gate, when you walk in the door. #emojicon #?#plushies #emoji
A photo posted by Abbie Fentress Swanson (@dearabbie) on Nov 5, 2016 at 10:06am PDT

What you eat is what you poop ?? #realtalk
A photo posted by Matt Fuad (@mfuadster) on Nov 5, 2016 at 1:04am PDT

Portable pink poop charger #emojicon #lesters #poop #iphone #toptrenz ????
A photo posted by @lesterskids on Nov 3, 2016 at 7:18pm PDT

I think I might be too old for #emojicon
A photo posted by Olivia Solon (@oliviasolon) on Nov 5, 2016 at 4:47pm PDT

Another poop to add to the growing collection ? #poop #balloon #emojicon #instagood
A photo posted by B E C K Y B I N G P H O T O (@beckybingphoto) on Nov 5, 2016 at 4:02pm PDT

On a more serious note, the convention, initiated by Jennifer 8 Lee (yes, her self-given middle name is the number 8 – because it's a symbol of good luck), was also an effort to grant the masses a voice in the oftentimes closed process of emoji selection. After all, 92% of online users use emoji so it is only fair that they have a say in it.

In addition to talks explaining the emoji selection process and a bunch of other educational seminars, EmojiCon also played witness to a series of new emoji proposals including more gender-equal emojis; one by a 15-year-old girl, who is campaigning for a hijab emoji; and the preview of the upcoming dumplings and chopsticks emojis.

google gender proposers at #emojicon pic.twitter.com/GsHC42ttfg
— Mark Davis ☕ (@mark_e_davis) November 7, 2016

At #emojicon from Berlin! 15-year-old Saudia Arabian @rayoufalh speaking about her quest for a hijab emoji. pic.twitter.com/5I1DzX9CRU
— Jennifer 8. Lee (@jenny8lee) November 6, 2016

Coming soon: the dumpling emoji! Designed by @YiyingLu #emojicon pic.twitter.com/hQckgSaUBF
— Jeanne Brooks (@jmfbrooks) November 6, 2016

Now, excuse us as we figure out how to get nasi lemak bungkus as an emoji. What emojis would you like to see? Tell us in the comment section below.