Email, Texting, and Voicemail Etiquette: What's the difference between emoji and emoticons?
How do different customers and/or consumer think of it differently in Japan, Korea and Greater Asia?
4 Answers
Thorfinn Tait,
Views
I have used both extensively: emoticons during online conversations of all kinds, and emoji on my mobile phones for almost 10 years until I changed to a smartphone.
It seems to me that emoji is a rather open set of pictorial icons. Even though the set is generally limited by the cellphone company who makes your phone, potentially it could include pretty much anything you like - even more so if emoji are taken into an international context, and country-specific symbols are added (for countries other than Japan).
Emoticons on the other hand are generally a limited set of icons which, by definition, express an emotion of one kind or another. Most are based on cartoon-like faces, although there are exceptions. Still, the concept of expressing an emotion is the common factor.
While emoticons originated as text, and even today encompass both text (i.e. a simple form of ASCII art) and actual pictures, emoji have always been just pictures. Because of this, you could argue that emoticons are not just a subset of emoji, since they also have a text version, and indeed in Japan this text version has its own expanded symbols known as kaomoji (face letters).
Still, the fact is that most emoticons have a pictorial symbol equivalent, and this pictorial version can most certainly be considered to be an emoji.
So to sum up, my opinion is that:
- emoji are a potentially limitless set of pictorial symbols used for various purposes, including but not limited to expressing emotions, substituting for words, and so on.
- emoticons come in two flavours: text and image. Text emoticons are the original version. Images are a more recent version, and most text emoticons have a pictorial version. Image emoticons are de facto emoji. Specifically, they are the subset of emoji used for expressing emotions. Text emoticons may thus be considered precursors of emoji, which have nonetheless developed in their own way and remain relevant.
It seems to me that emoji is a rather open set of pictorial icons. Even though the set is generally limited by the cellphone company who makes your phone, potentially it could include pretty much anything you like - even more so if emoji are taken into an international context, and country-specific symbols are added (for countries other than Japan).
Emoticons on the other hand are generally a limited set of icons which, by definition, express an emotion of one kind or another. Most are based on cartoon-like faces, although there are exceptions. Still, the concept of expressing an emotion is the common factor.
While emoticons originated as text, and even today encompass both text (i.e. a simple form of ASCII art) and actual pictures, emoji have always been just pictures. Because of this, you could argue that emoticons are not just a subset of emoji, since they also have a text version, and indeed in Japan this text version has its own expanded symbols known as kaomoji (face letters).
Still, the fact is that most emoticons have a pictorial symbol equivalent, and this pictorial version can most certainly be considered to be an emoji.
So to sum up, my opinion is that:
- emoji are a potentially limitless set of pictorial symbols used for various purposes, including but not limited to expressing emotions, substituting for words, and so on.
- emoticons come in two flavours: text and image. Text emoticons are the original version. Images are a more recent version, and most text emoticons have a pictorial version. Image emoticons are de facto emoji. Specifically, they are the subset of emoji used for expressing emotions. Text emoticons may thus be considered precursors of emoji, which have nonetheless developed in their own way and remain relevant.
Anastasia Gamezo,
Views
Emoji is a special standartized set of icons, invented by Shigetaka Kurita in 1995.
Emoticons are any smiley symbols.
Emoticons represent a broad category of icons, while emoji include only specific icons.
E.g. in this app (Emoji Emoticons Art) you can see Emoji Library (the full collection of emoji) and and Emoticons collection. The difference becomes quite clear.
Emoticons are any smiley symbols.
Emoticons represent a broad category of icons, while emoji include only specific icons.
E.g. in this app (Emoji Emoticons Art) you can see Emoji Library (the full collection of emoji) and and Emoticons collection. The difference becomes quite clear.
emoji are little picture characters, usually displayed in color by most operating systems. a simple example of emoji is \U0001f603
emoticons are combinations of characters that are typically used as text. the creative combination of multiple characters results in a small picture that typically resembles some human emotion, the simplest example being :)
emoticons are combinations of characters that are typically used as text. the creative combination of multiple characters results in a small picture that typically resembles some human emotion, the simplest example being :)
Anonymous
Views
According with Unicode Consortium FAQ about emoji; http://unicode.org/faq/em
Not exactly. Emoticons (from “emotion” plus “icon”) are specifically intended to depict facial expression or body posture as a way of conveying emotion or attitude in e-mail and text messages. They originated as ASCII character combinations such as :-) to indicate a smile—and by extension, a joke—and :-( to indicate a frown. In East Asia, a number of more elaborate sequences have been developed, such as (")(-_-)(") showing an upset face with hands raised. Over time, many systems began replacing such sequences with images, and also began providing ways to input emoticon images directly, such as a menu or palette. The emoji sets used by Japanese cell phone carriers contain a large number of characters for emoticon images, along with many other non-emoticon emoji.
