The pope’s meeting with young people from all over the world won’t be celebrated only in Krakow, since other equally important “places” where young pilgrims will gather will be the social networks. On Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat, WYD participants will share their journey, from their meeting with the pope to everything they experience on Polish soil.
When it comes to social networks, it’s all about images: communicating through photos and imagery has is essential to the way we use modern technology.
On behalf of Aleteia, the Swyft Media company has therefore created the PopeEmoji app, a collection of icons featuring Pope Francis.
The keyboard of emoticons was first designed in English especially for the Pope’s visit to the US.
“The success of the first PopeEmoji has far exceeded our expectations. The high participation of users has shown us that there is a real need for this type of application,” said Jason Deal, head of strategy and marketing for Aleteia.
“Since the launch in September in 2015, 1.2 million PopeEmoji have been sent through our mobile app and messaging apps like Apple iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Viber. Through all of this sharing, our emoticons have been viewed over 34 million times,” Deal said.
New icons associated subsequent feasts and events — such as Christmas, Holy Week and the pope’s apostolic journey to Mexico — were added to the applications.
“In particular, however, we wanted our 8 million users from all over the world to be able to access the applications in their preferred language,” Deal explained.
Currently the Pope Emoji application is available in 7 languages: English, Spanish, Italian, Polish, French, Portuguese and Arabic.
We couldn’t leave out a special package of emoticons for World Youth Day in Krakow. We hope that, thanks to all of you, images with Pope Francis and the Polish flag in the background, with the pope wearing the characteristic garb of Krakow or eating Polish “pierogi,” will reign on social media.
In the package of World Youth Day emoticons you’ll also find, for example, the icon of St. Faustina Kowalska.
You can download the emoticons here.
[Translation from the Italian]
And today we celebrate...