We send 10 billion of them every day. Where do they come from? Zachary Crockett hearts this topic.

• SOURCES:
  • Jennifer 8. Lee, co-founder of Emojination.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Apple Removes The Gun Emoji, Replaces It With A Squirt Gun," by Carl Franzen (Popular Science, 2021).
  • "Ford’s secret fight for a pickup truck emoji," by Mark Dent (The Hustle, 2019).
  • "The WIRED Guide to Emoji," by Arielle Pardes (WIRED, 2018).
  • "How the iPhone won over Japan and gave the world emoji," by Sam Byford (The Verge, 2017).
  • "About Emoji," (Unicode Consortium).

When security cameras and facial recognition tools fail, law enforcement investigators fall back on a witness's memory and an artist's hand. Zachary Crockett's nose was a little bigger than that.

• SOURCES:
  • Lois Gibson, forensic artist.
  • David Sarni, adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Fighting Crime With Pencil and Paper," by J. David Goodman (New York Times, 2013)
  • "Something Sketchy About Identifying Suspects," by Stephen Owsinski (National Police Association).
  • "Forensic Art Certification Scope and Role," (International Association for Identification).
  • "Forensice Art Composites," (Samantha Steinberg).

How does an industry built on roadside pop-ups make billions of dollars in two weeks of the year? Zachary Crockett gets pyrotechnical.

• SOURCES:
  • Alex Zoldan, vice president of Phantom Fireworks.

• RESOURCES:
  • Phantom Fireworks 2025 Wholesale Price List.
  • "The Explosive Growth Of The Fireworks Market," by Greg Rosalsky, Darian Woods, and Julian Ritchey (NPR, 2023).
  • "Directory of State Laws for Consumer Fireworks," (American Pyrotechnics Association).