Diwali emoji crowdsourced by Twitter India goes live

In a first of its kind interactive activity, thousands of Indians participated in a unique 48-hour Twitter Poll @TwitterIndia and chose the colour of this year’s customised Twitter diwali ‘diya’ emoji. People chose from four options: orange, blue, green, and pink -- and orange was the clear winner, with approximately 50% of votes in favour of this bright festive colour.

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/790797372246855680

Starting today and for the next four-days of the festival period, millions of Indians across the world can use the orange-coloured ‘diya’ emoji in their Tweets and join the celebrations on Twitter. All they have to do is Tweet using #HappyDiwali, #HappyDeepavali, #Diwali, #Deepavali, as well as Hindi hashtags #दिवाली or #दीपावली and the ‘diya’ emoji will appear next to the hashtag.

@TwitterIndia launched the emoji today morning with a GIF Tweet to announce the hashtags people can use to see their Tweets light up with the diya emoji:

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/791881288462376960

Speaking on this initiative, Keya Madhvani, Head of Lifestyle and Culture Partnerships, Twitter India said, “It is exciting to bring everyone together for a cultural moment through this delightful and beautiful emoji. We want Indians everywhere to engage in conversation on our platform, and light up Twitter by sharing their favourite Diwali moments, videos, photos and fun Tweets around the festival.”

People across India are Tweeting with the customised emoji to wish fellow Indians a happy, prosperous and safe Diwali.

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/ShankersinhBapu/status/791888504015892482

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/KiranKS/status/791713645482741760

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/Iam_Prerna/status/791850450588798976

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/caryedwards/status/791688008143548416

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/ruSh_Me/status/790592580077641728

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/periyakulam/status/791831096962842624

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/lifesavernet/status/791898568973955075

A Twitter emoji is a true delight for people and it instantly brings everyone together during a key cultural moment. Last year, Twitter launched its first-ever Diwali emoji with Bollywood superstars Salman Khan (@BeingSalmanKhan) and Sonam Kapoor (@sonamkapoor), and the platform reverberated with diverse voices in 1.8 million Tweets from people across the world.

This year, Twitter has also launched special emojis for moments of national cultural significance such as Ganeshotsav, International Day of Yoga, Independence Day and Republic Day. This year, Twitter also launched its first-ever emoji for a TV series for #BiggBoss10 to celebrate one of the biggest moments in entertainment of the year on Twitter.