Twitter users may feel The Force with new emojis linked to the 'Star Wars' franchise

Twitter users may feel The Force with new emojis based on the mega-hit "Star Wars" franchise.

 

On Friday (PHL time), the micro-blogging service posted images of the new emojis, though three characters are being featured for now.

 

"In anticipation of the theatrical release of 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens,' we partnered with Disney and Lucasfilm to create custom Twitter emojis, giving Twitter users the ability to show their enthusiasm for the ever-evolving Star Wars universe," Rachel Dodes, head of movie partnerships, said in a blog post.

 

She said this is one more way users can express their passion about their favorite pop culture phenomenon.

 

Dodes said custom emojis will be released in honor of the upcoming film "Star Wars VII," including iconic legacy characters and a some new characters.

 

The first three debuted during the Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, California - C3P0, BB8, and Stormtrooper.

 

Twitter featured the C3P0 emoji in a separate tweet.

 

It also left instructions for triggering the emojis: use the hashtags.

 

Dodes explained Twitter users who post hashtags representing keywords associated with the specific "Star Wars" characters and legacy themes will see a small emoji-like icon.

 

The icon will be "automatically appended to the end of the text of the tag, embedded within the Tweet."

 

Not official unicode

 

A separate report on Mashable cautioned Twitter users that these emojis will not appear on non-official Twitter apps as they are custom to Twitter.com and Twitter's official apps.

 

Mashable also said these emojis are not officially included in the emoji specification as designated by Unicode.

 

"That's why they only work on Twitter.com and in the official Twitter mobile apps. It's also why Twitter hasn't replaced the hashtags with the emoji-like characters; it just added the characters next to the hashtags," it said.  — Joel Locsin/ELR, GMA News