4 ms·

The smiley is an efficient general-purpose abstraction of reality; the emoji is a million instances of copy-pasted overly-specific code.

by rdiddly 10y ago

jobigoud 10y ago
Emojis are in Unicode. They aren't parsed or converted to multiple glyphs anymore, the text editor will provide them directly. http://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html http://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html I was doubtful of emojis at first, but now I'm loving the concept. They really help me communicate emotions that I wouldn't put into actual words. Smileys can't really do that. Culturally I see it as a the first universal (limited) language, using standardized ideograms. Maybe in a few decades we can express full sentences and we will have a written language for all Humans to use. 21st century hieroglyphs.
- calt 10y ago
  There have been attempts a universal language that are quite fascinating. There's an interesting RadioLab on the subject of Bissymbols. I suppose the one that sticks and evolves over time is the one that probably matters though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blissymbols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blissymbols http://www.radiolab.org/story/257194-man-became-bliss/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/257194-man-became-bliss/
  - teddyh 10y ago
    Maxor~ ellioid; s~h~ush UPCOM, shud shout aout aout. Ellioté brooghund brooghund.
- ximeng 10y ago
  See for example the translation of moby dick into emoji as a prototype of emoji as language
- Aexian 10y ago
  As a college student, I use emoji constantly to communicate all sorts of abstract sentiments, but in my experience they can also be irritatingly ambiguous and highly dependent on cultural norms and interpretation. Take the thumbs up emoji - within my social circles, the exact same emoji can be interpreted both as a enthusiastic agreement ("Sure!") and also as a sarcastic affirmation ("Good for you."). It's often difficult to infer the intended meaning, even with context, and in some circumstances I've found emojis have actually added significantly to the ambiguity and cognitive burden in parsing a text. That's not a problem I have often faced with simple smileys.
  - jobigoud 10y ago
    We need an emoji to represent sarcasm that we would put at the end of the message, like the use of "/s". And I think this would count as grammar.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

The smiley is an efficient general-purpose abstraction of reality; the emoji is a million instances of copy-pasted overly-specific code.

by rdiddly 10y ago

The smiley is an efficient general-purpose abstraction of reality; the emoji is a million instances of copy-pasted overly-specific code.

jobigoud 10y ago

Emojis are in Unicode. They aren't parsed or converted to multiple glyphs anymore, the text editor will provide them directly. http://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html http://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html I was doubtful of emojis at first, but now I'm loving the concept. They really help me communicate emotions that I wouldn't put into actual words. Smileys can't really do that. Culturally I see it as a the first universal (limited) language, using standardized ideograms. Maybe in a few decades we can express full sentences and we will have a written language for all Humans to use. 21st century hieroglyphs.

calt 10y ago
There have been attempts a universal language that are quite fascinating. There's an interesting RadioLab on the subject of Bissymbols. I suppose the one that sticks and evolves over time is the one that probably matters though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blissymbols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blissymbols http://www.radiolab.org/story/257194-man-became-bliss/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/257194-man-became-bliss/
- teddyh 10y ago
  Maxor~ ellioid; s~h~ush UPCOM, shud shout aout aout. Ellioté brooghund brooghund.
ximeng 10y ago
See for example the translation of moby dick into emoji as a prototype of emoji as language
Aexian 10y ago
As a college student, I use emoji constantly to communicate all sorts of abstract sentiments, but in my experience they can also be irritatingly ambiguous and highly dependent on cultural norms and interpretation. Take the thumbs up emoji - within my social circles, the exact same emoji can be interpreted both as a enthusiastic agreement ("Sure!") and also as a sarcastic affirmation ("Good for you."). It's often difficult to infer the intended meaning, even with context, and in some circumstances I've found emojis have actually added significantly to the ambiguity and cognitive burden in parsing a text. That's not a problem I have often faced with simple smileys.
- jobigoud 10y ago
  We need an emoji to represent sarcasm that we would put at the end of the message, like the use of "/s". And I think this would count as grammar.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]