Emoji taxonomy:

8 years ago

"Happy faces, sad faces, hearts, hand gestures, romance, other, monkeys, party, holiday, violent, flowers, clocks."

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

Tags: computers, monkeys, phones, poop, www

Current Music: Vanbot -- Make Me, Break Me ♬

4 Responses:

1. Jef Poskanzer says:

   8 years ago at 4:44 pm

   I assume :poop: is counted under "happy faces".

2. Karellen says:

   8 years ago at 11:37 pm

   OK, I'm a bit confused. I've been on the internets for some time now, and know the meaning of a wide range of emoticons. But emojis seem weird, in that I can't imagine the circumstances that most of them might be needed under.

   For instance, the plain "gun" emoji. Why? What does it mean? I could see the use and meaning for a "gun firing in the air" emoji ("fuck yeah! Woo!"), but a plain gun?

   There are lists of emoticons and what they represent/mean all over the web, but I can't find a similar basic list for emojis. I can find lists of what the emoji's names are ("pistol", "guardsman", "japanese ogre") and a bit of extended background on what they represent, but none of them list what it means to send someone that emoji. Why would you send a "guardsman"? I saw a guardsman today? I feel like I'm guarding some metaphorical shit? I'm starting my shift being a security guard soon and have to go? Ditto japansese ogre. Does that list exist? (Where?)

   And "eggplant"? WTF? I had to look this one up, and found out it gets used because it looks like a dick. Well, I thought, why not just use a dick emoji? It turns out there isn't one! (Or I can't find it) There's all these weird fucking emojis, and no dick emoji? But there's an eggplant? What was the meaning of the eggplant, before it got repurposed into a dick? Why would someone introduce a gorram eggplant into the set of emojis in the first place? And if people want to send a dick, why don't they just fall back to a good old-fashioned emoticon dick instead? 8====D

   • Rena says:

     8 years ago at 10:57 am

     A lot of them seem to be "hey, let's throw in vector versions of every printed sign ever!"

   • James C. says:

     8 years ago at 10:26 am

     The emoji inventory, as the name implies, was developed in Japan. It’s the result of a bunch of different vendors supplying various symbols for their customers, then standardizing the existing inventories across platforms.

     TL;DR: Because Japan.