Emoji Presentation

Technical/Unicode

The default rendering of a character as a colorful emoji glyph, either inherently or when triggered by Variation Selector-16.

Characters with emoji presentation are shown as colorful, graphical glyphs by default. Most characters added specifically as emoji (U+1F600 and above) have emoji presentation by default.

Older characters that existed before emoji (like ☀ U+2600 or ♠ U+2660) may have text presentation by default and need VS-16 to trigger emoji display. The Unicode Emoji data files list the default presentation for each character.

Platform behavior can vary — some platforms show emoji presentation for characters that technically default to text, especially on mobile devices.

Related Terms

Text Presentation Text Presentation
The rendering of a character as a monochrome text symbol, either by default or when Variation Selector-15 is applied. Variation Selector (VS) Variation Selector (VS)
Unicode characters (VS-15 U+FE0E and VS-16 U+FE0F) that modify whether a character renders in text (monochrome) or emoji (colorful) presentation.

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