Some time ago, I noticed that youtube comments are copied without emojis, thought nothing of that - bugs happen - but today I finally decided to find out why and what the hell is even this.
What exactly does it matter to be stuck with old emojis? Why is it important for them to be perfectly uniform?
When they look different people interpret them differently.
That’s interesting. I wonder how true that still is today, given the study was done in 2016. The study also pointed out that even on the same platform, people on average interpreted the same emojis differently. I’d be interested in an updated study conducted among younger Gen Z to see if being completely raised in the digital age has created various emoji languages, especially across cultures (which they mention they wanted to do at the end of the article as well).
That’s really interesting, I didn’t realise the problem was that bad. I did the quiz at the bottom, tried to answer honestly and only got 5 out of 14 correct.
I got 7 and even then that’s only because half way through I began to notice a theme on the really obscure ones with long names.
These are ridiculous, they often bear no resemblance at all to their supposed meaning wtf? Slanted closed eyes with steam coming out the nostrils isn’t anger it’s… “Triumph”!?
note on emojipedia it’s called BEAMING face with smiling eyes
When they look different people interpret them differently.
Ah, paralinguistic communication is always like this. Once you change the symbol ever so slightly, the meaning being conveyed also changes.
The ones in MS Teams are so cursed. I use it for work and I swear everything about that app is peak catering to boomers.
I guess that makes more sense now that I see an example. I just can’t fathom how any Apple artist thought they made a “grinning face with smiling eyes” when they looked at that image. It’s “grimacing face with smiling eyes” very obviously. I thought all representations were like the others in this example - they all look like a “grinning face with smiling eyes”. They look different but it doesn’t matter.
I still think though that if there weren’t obvious mistakes like this, it doesn’t matter how the “grinning face with smiling eyes” exactly looks, or any other emoji for that matter.
It’s clearly another way to wall the apple garden further, to the point where you don’t get to communicate in an effective way unless you both have an iPhone.
