In accordance with some embodiments, a portable electronic device includes: a display; one or more processors; memory; and one or more programs, wherein the one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or mor processors. The one or more programs include instructions for: detecting a user-defined gesture on the display while the portable electronic device is in a user-defined-gesture recording mode; creating a representation of the user-defined gesture; associating the representation of the user-defined gesture with an emoji character; and storing the representation of the user-defined gesture and the association of the representation of the user-defined gesture with the emoji character.