Is there any program that lets you type emojis?
Example: :thumbs up: becomes 
it only does seem to work on this website, though. so, is there a universal way?
I imagine most text editors will have this function available. I have a plugin within Vim for emojis, for example.
Are you looking for a text editor that has emoji support?
Mate terminal will display emojis
I recommend the Indicator EmojiTwo to use emoji 
.