Fans of social media were treated to an array of Michael Phelps emojis released last week, just in time for the start of the Olympic Games in Rio. As a result, swim nerds around the world can pay tribute to their favorite 22-time Olympian via inserting #MP’s famous face (and 18 gold medals) in messages and social media posts, including Twitter.
And now, the Twitterverse’s emoji bundle has expanded even further with a special tribute to the Olympics, as Twitter has announced its own mix of Games-themed images.
With the 2016 Olympic Games set to kick-off on Friday, fans around the globe can trigger the appearance of their nations’ flags just by tweeting the three-letter country code. Doing so automatically displays a country’s flag within the tweet. Below is an example.
Of note, the newly-formed Refugee Olympic Team (#ROT) is included within the ‘country’ flag emojis:
There are also emojis connected with Olympic-themed hashtags such as #gold, #silver, #bronze, #Olympics, #Opening Ceremony, #OlympicGames. Each Olympic sport, when hashtagged, also automatically generates its corresponding graphic, per below.
According to Twitter, the hashtags that trigger the emojis will be available in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. The hashtags that trigger sports emojis, as well as #Rio2016 and #Olympics, are also available in Japanese, Korean, and Arabic.