Emojipedia Blog

It became a toy because Apple unilaterally changed it, and then everyone had to follow because it would otherwise lead to things like this: https://blog.emojipedia.org/content/images/2016/08/emojipedia-pistol-e…

The pistol emoji originally looked like a real gun. I think only Windows had a fake looking gun (more of a ray gun than a water pistol) initially. https://web.archive.org/web/20150625033351/https://unicode.org/emoji/c… The change to a water pistol started with Apple in 2016, and then other companies followed: https://blog.emojipedia.org/apple-and-the-gun-emoji/

Interesting, given the examples in this article and [1] of confusion and miscommunication caused by differences in how different platforms depict the same emoji. So in the context of online dating, does that mean that humans are now selecting for the best compatibility between users of the same mobile platforms? :) I can see how some apps decided to switch to their own emoji sets... [1] https://blog.emojipedia.org/emojipedia-lookups-at-all-time-high/

The best resource for this I've found is here: https://blog.emojipedia.org/who-owns-emoji/

For what it's worth, the Unicode Consortium seems to be trying to reign in the emoji explosion in the last few years. For example they won't process any new proposals for flags [1][2]: > The Unicode Consortium will no longer accept proposals for flags. Flags that correspond to officially assigned ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 region codes are automatically added, with no proposals necessary. And they decided against adding Multi-skintoned Families to the RGI, as in, vendors can encode them if they really want to, but it's not recommended. Apple for example replaced their more complex family emoji with the recommended silhouettes afterwards [4]. 1. https://blog.unicode.org/2022/03/the-past-and-future-of-flag-emoji.htm… 2. https://unicode.org/emoji/proposals.html#Flags 3. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20114-family-emoji-explor.pdf?ref=blo… 4. https://blog.emojipedia.org/ios-17-4-emoji-changelog/

> determined by a big company (or by a standardization committee for that matter) In practice the big companies are more in charge. Apple changed the pistol to a water gun (mentioned in the article and at [0]), and now all the big emoji sets from Google/MS/FB/Twtr/etc. also have a water gun instead of a pistol. Apple also succeeded at preventing the rifle emoji and the Modern Pentathlon emoji (which contained a rifle) from being included, apparently with support from MS. [0]: https://blog.emojipedia.org/apple-and-the-gun-emoji/ [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/20/apple-rifle-emoji-p… It's pretty stupid how every other big tech company follows every single bad decision that Apple makes. Removing 3.5mm jack, removing pistol emoji, notches in screens, and now getting rid of chargers. I personally do everything I can to boycott Unicode emoji. Some platforms like Slack/Discord allow for adding your own emoji which is nice. Language should not be controlled by a single entity.

Personally I hate seeing this happen both as a specific instance in the case of HK/Taiwan but just in general with corporations and politics. Professionally and philosophically it's another interesting wrinkle in the implications of the emoji technology. It reminded of something we saw a couple years ago when Apple changed the depiction of the gun emoji [0]. Interestingly, that blog post's proposed solution (note: same author as the OP article): > Hide it. This speaks to how fragile Unicode is, that things that were written in the past may so easily be changed in the future (like the replacement for Taiwan in China) or hidden in various ways. Another article mentions how emoji might be used by e.g. fascists to minimize uncomfortable concepts [1]. Even after you apply Hanlon's razor, there's still opportunity for good old-fashioned miscommunication [2]. [1] specifically mentions the mosquito emoji being introduced for health awareness, but what if we eradicate Malaria or even the mosquito as a whole, and then the irrelevant emoji is replaced with something not widely feared or hated, or maybe even beloved (like another social awareness campaign)? Then there'd be a lot of "Man I hate :positive-thing:" messages out there. I'm not saying let's ban emoji, it's just interesting to think about. Still, I hope the whitewashing effect mentioned in [1] doesn't gain more ground, here or otherwise. [0]: https://blog.emojipedia.org/apple-and-the-gun-emoji/ (discussed:…

It's nice they're sharing the 3D model files, and I like they're getting closer to the standard Apple look. But designing them in 3D isn't super novel. It's the Apple approach since iOS 10.2 https://blog.emojipedia.org/ios-10-2-emoji-changelog/

All vendor's guns have always aimed at the left, however there are plenty of discrepancies, collectively referred to as "emoji fragmentation" https://blog.emojipedia.org/2018-the-year-of-emoji-convergence/

That's also why the stonks-going-up emoji traditionally has a red line, Japan shares that convention. https://blog.emojipedia.org/why-does-the-chart-increasing-emoji-show-i…

No, the argument was that existing character sets used in Japanese feature phones had them. Because Japanese characters are wider than Western characters, those platforms could be more creative with pictographic characters as well, and could easily add color due to the proprietary phone OS. Unicode added them because Unicode's goal is to provide round-trip compatability with existing character sets. https://blog.emojipedia.org/correcting-the-record-on-the-first-emoji-s…

This is a good piece on the history of emoji and the role of NTT Docomo and Softbank https://blog.emojipedia.org/correcting-the-record-on-the-first-emoji-s…

The first emoji sets were created by Japanese portable electronic device companies in the late 1980s and the 1990s. ~ https://blog.emojipedia.org/new-earliest-emoji-sets-from-1988-and-1990…

I know what you mean, but Emoji isn't a fixed set. Unicode is regularly revised and more characters and emoji are added, based on decisions made by the Unicode Consortium: https://blog.emojipedia.org/whats-new-in-unicode-15-1-and-emoji-15-1/

AI model-sharing platform, named after the emoji: https://blog.emojipedia.org/emojiology-hugging-face/ (I don't know that I've ever attempted to paste an emoji into HN before, and I'm rather glad to learn it strips them out, though they're fine in other contexts.)

While I have no personal opinion on this topic (it hardly affects me in anyway); the emojis were most definitely added for conscious and political purposes: https://blog.emojipedia.org/why-is-there-a-pregnant-man-emoji/

> (is green negative?) From the link at your link, yes, negative is green in Japan. https://blog.emojipedia.org/why-does-the-chart-increasing-emoji-show-i…

Emojipedia as usual has writeups on this stuff: https://blog.emojipedia.org/apple-and-the-gun-emoji/ https://blog.emojipedia.org/all-major-vendors-commit-to-gun-redesign/

I have a soft spot for them too. In case you're missed it, they've made a return in the Noto Emoji font: https://blog.emojipedia.org/exploring-googles-new-black-and-blobby-emo…

Seems like this is suffering from issues around the flag of Afghanistan as well: https://blog.emojipedia.org/what-about-the-afghanistan-flag-emoji/

RE point 4, I believe that this was initially a descriptivist rather than prescriptivist step. People were using emoticons, showing that emoji might be desirable. Some cell phone manufacturers/carriers added their own emoji [1]. They were very popular. Unicode added emoji to the standard, since lots of people were using it. Not adding emoji would have been _more_ prescriptivist, and since it was desired anyway would have just caused fragmentation. [1] https://blog.emojipedia.org/correcting-the-record-on-the-first-emoji-s…

> "Emojis" looks wrong to me, but I suspect that's because I speak a little Japanese. Yep, I prefer "emoji" given the zero plural in Japanese. I don't think there's a consensus though. For example, Apple uses "emoji" [1], Emojipedia uses "emojis" [2], and the OED includes both [3]. [1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211808#145 [2]: https://blog.emojipedia.org/first-look-217-new-emojis-in-ios-14-5/ [3]: https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/389343

The notion of paella purity is powerful enough that Valencians successfully protested Apple's rendering of the "shallow pan of food" emoji because it evoked a non-Valencian paella (or, as they would say, not paella at all but just arroz con cosas.) https://blog.emojipedia.org/apple-fixes-paella-emoji/

This has not been true since early 2018. See: https://blog.emojipedia.org/all-major-vendors-commit-to-gun-redesign/ There was only a couple of years when vendors rendered it differently, and they worked toward a consensus, as they have for many other emojis. Even if there was no vendor consensus, I'm not sure what the misunderstanding could be with this particular emoji. There is only one pistol emoji, and regardless of whether it is rendered as a water pistol or a revolver, it still is used to represent the concept of a pistol. There are better examples of emojis that used to be displayed with a facial expression or hand gesture that had a relatively different meaning depending on the platform. For example face with rolling eyes, person tipping hand (information desk person) and so on.

Vendors don’t even agree on whether the :gun: is a revolver or an automatic or space ray guns or even water guns, btw it’s an 1911 in original DoCoMo emojis 1: https://blog.emojipedia.org/content/images/2018/04/microsoft-windows-p…

There's also an upside-down emoji smiley with its own distinct mood. Hopefully services don't start translating (: into that, they're used quite differently! https://blog.emojipedia.org/emojiology-upside-down-face/

There was a similar drama regarding ingredient order in burger emoji[0] and squid/mosquito anatomy[1] [0] https://blog.emojipedia.org/google-fixes-burger-emoji/ [1] https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/9/24/20882195/ios-13-1-emoji-update…

Isn’t this just like apples animated emoji (Animoji) where your face is mapped to a emoji character? Except instead of a cartoon it’s mapped to your actual face. https://blog.emojipedia.org/apples-new-animoji/ And how well does that work when you switch to screen sharing?

What's new: https://blog.emojipedia.org/whats-new-in-unicode-13-0/