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0 pointscodethief5y ago0 comments

Add to that that, depending on the emoji font, the emoji will look completely different[0]. So as the sender you have no guarantee that the recipient of your message will actually interpret your emoji as you intended. It really is beyond me why the Unicode consortium thought that putting emojis in a character set would be a good idea.

Sure, having a code point in your character set that represents a bird[1] makes sense but I really hate that font designers now have control over the way I get to express my emotions and how others perceive them.

[0]: Sure, ":)" and ":/" also depend on the font but much less.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26164409

0 comments

ALittleLight5y ago

I'm reminded of a story I heard where someone responded to news of a death in the family with what they took to be a crying face, but what the recipients took to be a crying laughing face.

dspillett5y ago

Text can have problems with people guessing what things mean from the situation they first see them (where the meaning is not entirely unambiguous).

I've seen a similar story of someone thinking "lol" meant "lots of love" and used it to end messages regarding the death of a family member.

codethiefOP5y ago

The thing is, with emojis the differences introduced by font designers can be very subtle. In the GP's case, the laughing emoji seemed so much out of place and violated social protocol so heavily that I assume the confusion was probably cleared up later on.

But what about cases where a font designer changes, say, an emoji face with a light, content smile to a shy smile? This has the chance to undermine the entire emotional content of a message, without sender and recipient ever noticing.

For a more concrete example, have a look at https://emojipedia.org/beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes/ . Is it just me who thinks that the glyphs by Apple and WhatsApp show a beaming face with a somewhat sly touch whereas most others simply display happiness?

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bmn__5y ago

> why the Unicode consortium thought that putting emojis in a character set would be a good idea.

That puts blame on the wrong organisation. The consortium is to the most part only standardising existing character repertoires. Emojis were popularised by a mobile phone equipment manufacturer as a marketing stunt. http://enwp.org/Emoji#History

ajconway5y ago

Emoji are modern hieroglyphs. It's just an additional means of conveying meaning.

> font designers now have control over the way I get to express my emotions

This could have been a major issue, but media platforms recognized it and have provided their own pictograms for years, mostly compatible with each other.

LocalH5y ago

They have a valid point, however. What is now widely considered to be a "water gun" emoji started out as an actual gun, but Apple decided at one point that they were going to be "progressive" and changed it to a water gun. To me, this upends the entire idea of emoji having a stable definition.

ajconway5y ago

Words don't have stable definitions either. My point was that there is nothing special about emojis any more than there is about Chinese characters or Egyptian hieroglyphs.

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c225y ago

It's fascinating to me that they did this with the pistol, but :knife:, :bomb:, :dagger:, :crossed_swords:, :bow_and_arrow:, et al all look as threatening as ever.

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uryga5y ago

> It really is beyond me why the Unicode consortium thought that putting emojis in a character set would be a good idea.

iirc some japanese character sets already had them (introduced by telecoms for text messaging?), so originally they were included for compatibility [i.e. to fulfill Unicode's goal of being able to encode everything]. then people discovered the emoji keyboard on iphones and it got popular

gjvnq5y ago

They did it for compatibility with Japanese encodings.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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ALittleLight5y ago

I'm reminded of a story I heard where someone responded to news of a death in the family with what they took to be a crying face, but what the recipients took to be a crying laughing face.

dspillett5y ago

Text can have problems with people guessing what things mean from the situation they first see them (where the meaning is not entirely unambiguous).

I've seen a similar story of someone thinking "lol" meant "lots of love" and used it to end messages regarding the death of a family member.

codethiefOP5y ago

1 more reply

bmn__5y ago

> why the Unicode consortium thought that putting emojis in a character set would be a good idea.

ajconway5y ago

Emoji are modern hieroglyphs. It's just an additional means of conveying meaning.

> font designers now have control over the way I get to express my emotions

This could have been a major issue, but media platforms recognized it and have provided their own pictograms for years, mostly compatible with each other.

LocalH5y ago

ajconway5y ago

Words don't have stable definitions either. My point was that there is nothing special about emojis any more than there is about Chinese characters or Egyptian hieroglyphs.

1 more reply

c225y ago

It's fascinating to me that they did this with the pistol, but :knife:, :bomb:, :dagger:, :crossed_swords:, :bow_and_arrow:, et al all look as threatening as ever.

1 more reply

uryga5y ago

> It really is beyond me why the Unicode consortium thought that putting emojis in a character set would be a good idea.

gjvnq5y ago

They did it for compatibility with Japanese encodings.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse