5 ms·

And it's true. Case in point: the gun emoticon.

amelius 8y ago
By the way, it's stupid that we still can't have user-defined emoticons. We could have enriched our online culture with a flourishing set of shared emoticons by now!
- tivert 8y ago
  > By the way, it's stupid that we still can't have user-defined [emojis]. Emojis should have only been embedded user-defined pngs. I know I'm being cranky and old, but I feel our character sets shouldn't have been used to encode novel cute pictures.
  - amelius 8y ago
    Yes. The problem is that it assumes that language is fixed. However, the correct way is to make emojis freely definable, so that the emoji language will continue to develop; of course, the unfortunate side-effect for character set maintainers would be that they have to expand the set in order to incorporate the new parts of the language. But that is their problem; you can't force a population to use a limited set of symbols.
    - thanatropism 8y ago
      > you can't force a population to use a limited set of symbols. It's called an "alphabet".
      - AsyncAwait 8y ago
        I think the point was "you can't force a population to use a limited set of symbols [that can't be used to express an arbitrary idea]".
        thanatropism 8y ago
        Well, not yet.
      - amelius 8y ago
        ... which would not exist if people could not define their own symbols.
- yellow_postit 8y ago
  You can change system emoji on windows as a font. If it’s a custom defined emoji meant for sharing isn’t that what gifs get used for most days?
  - amelius 8y ago
    Nope. You basically want inline emojis, in Whatsapp, because that's the most popular messaging service. And you want to be able to click other people's emojis and save them to your own emoji library.
- dingo_bat 8y ago
  It's called jpg.
- pjc50 8y ago
  GIFs.
- geofft 8y ago
  If only the Coded Hashes of Arbitrary Images proposal had been accepted! https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2016/16105-unicode-image-hash.pdf https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2016/16105-unicode-image-hash.pd... http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18203-coded-hashes.pdf http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18203-coded-hashes.pdf
- bdamm 8y ago
  I have no problem sending arbitrary images to my friends on both iPhone and Android platforms, over a number of different protocols including SMS. What's the problem? "Shared emoticons" sounds like what you really want is a way to channel community defined imagery into a palette of images. There are in fact ways to do that now, usually called "stickers". I'd never want just anyone to be able to define new Unicode targets. We'd soon be overrun with Ricks because idiots.
- SimbaOnSteroids 8y ago
  My discord feed is infinitely better as a result of custom emotes. Reactions to memes are much more often on point with what I wanted to communicate.
  - kebman 8y ago
    Oh well, all that's about to change now that EU puts #Article13 into place... :'(
NathanCH 8y ago
Why isn't facebook using Emoji like every one else? (Nearly. I'm looking at you Skype).

By the way, it's stupid that we still can't have user-defined emoticons. We could have enriched our online culture with a flourishing set of shared emoticons by now!

tivert 8y ago
> By the way, it's stupid that we still can't have user-defined [emojis]. Emojis should have only been embedded user-defined pngs. I know I'm being cranky and old, but I feel our character sets shouldn't have been used to encode novel cute pictures.
- amelius 8y ago
  Yes. The problem is that it assumes that language is fixed. However, the correct way is to make emojis freely definable, so that the emoji language will continue to develop; of course, the unfortunate side-effect for character set maintainers would be that they have to expand the set in order to incorporate the new parts of the language. But that is their problem; you can't force a population to use a limited set of symbols.
  - thanatropism 8y ago
    > you can't force a population to use a limited set of symbols. It's called an "alphabet".
    - AsyncAwait 8y ago
      I think the point was "you can't force a population to use a limited set of symbols [that can't be used to express an arbitrary idea]".
      - thanatropism 8y ago
        Well, not yet.
    - amelius 8y ago
      ... which would not exist if people could not define their own symbols.
yellow_postit 8y ago
You can change system emoji on windows as a font. If it’s a custom defined emoji meant for sharing isn’t that what gifs get used for most days?
- amelius 8y ago
  Nope. You basically want inline emojis, in Whatsapp, because that's the most popular messaging service. And you want to be able to click other people's emojis and save them to your own emoji library.
dingo_bat 8y ago
It's called jpg.
pjc50 8y ago
GIFs.
geofft 8y ago
If only the Coded Hashes of Arbitrary Images proposal had been accepted! https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2016/16105-unicode-image-hash.pdf https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2016/16105-unicode-image-hash.pd... http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18203-coded-hashes.pdf http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18203-coded-hashes.pdf
bdamm 8y ago
I have no problem sending arbitrary images to my friends on both iPhone and Android platforms, over a number of different protocols including SMS. What's the problem? "Shared emoticons" sounds like what you really want is a way to channel community defined imagery into a palette of images. There are in fact ways to do that now, usually called "stickers". I'd never want just anyone to be able to define new Unicode targets. We'd soon be overrun with Ricks because idiots.
SimbaOnSteroids 8y ago
My discord feed is infinitely better as a result of custom emotes. Reactions to memes are much more often on point with what I wanted to communicate.
- kebman 8y ago
  Oh well, all that's about to change now that EU puts #Article13 into place... :'(

NathanCH 8y ago

Why isn't facebook using Emoji like every one else? (Nearly. I'm looking at you Skype).