World Emoji Day: a light-hearted look at Sagunto local identity
Today, 17 July, marks World Emoji Day, and a local opinion column imagines which emojis would best represent Sagunto: the Roman Theatre, the Alt Forn (blast furnace), Almardà beach, and even the traffic jams on the avenue.
World Emoji Day has been celebrated every 17 July since 2014, an idea started by Jeremy Burge, founder of Emojipedia, who picked the date because that is how it appears in Apple's calendar emoji; since 2017 Apple has used the day to announce its new yearly emojis. Building on that, the column suggests a set of Sagunto-themed emojis: the Roman Theatre, the castle, the Mediterranean Sea with a small boat, and the Alto Horno (Alt Forn — the old blast furnace, a symbol of Puerto de Sagunto's industrial identity). It also proposes more critical icons, like a mountain of rubbish for complaints about street cleaning, a school under a scorching sun for worries about September heat, or a step at Almardà beach, a recurring complaint among locals every summer. Other ideas include an emoji for the traffic jam on Avenida de la Quarta Planta, a train that is never on time, and never-ending roadworks. The column closes by noting that, beyond beach and holiday clichés, this summer's local conversations also revolve around the heat, everyday problems and neighbourhood grievances. According to El Periódico de Aquí, with additional background from Wikipedia.