
Emojis are the body language of the digital age - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/50/emergence/why-you-need-emoji
======
beager
This article casually dismisses the depth and unique utility of body language
to ascribe a greater function to emoji than actually exists. It would have
been more reasonable just to say "emoji is very widely used in digital
communication and expands the vocabulary of digital communication in a unique
way." But that's already widely known.

What's more interesting to me is the adoption of emoji as a modern ideographic
writing system, and how the incidence of multiple connotations of specific
emoji mirrors the development of other ideographic writing systems (CJK et
al).

Emoji, gif keyboards, and general linguistic and sociological developments in
digital communication are all interesting. But body language is entirely
different, and to conflate the two as the article does is not a good look.

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e79
One thing that emojis cannot convey is unconscious body language. There are
many subtle communications that can bear influence in empathy, love, trust (or
distrust-- i.e. catching someone in a lie). Unconscious body language isn't
_required_ , but you can't ignore the fact that it is missing.

~~~
munificent
> One thing that emojis cannot convey is unconscious body language.

Would be interesting to build a chat application that uses the front-facing
camera and a little ML to determine your facial expression and attach the
appropriate emoji while you focus on writing the text.

Even more interesting would be if it did that without showing _you_ the emoji
it inserts.

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sebasxnco
I think that it is for this moment. When the 4g and 5g networks work well in
whole world, we won't need emojis, because video will be used to comunicate
with others. Everytime we will be less reticent to transmit videos or pics.
People want to show themselves and others want to see them, the real person.

~~~
onion2k
_People want to show themselves and others want to see them, the real person._

I think that varies with age, demographic, culture etc. There's _a lot_ of
people who hate the idea of being on camera.

~~~
sharkweek
This reminds me of David Foster Wallace's section in _Infinite Jest_ about the
anxiety-inducing video phone technology (very predictive, considering it was
written in 1996) -

" _And the videophonic stress was even worse if you were at all vain. I.e. if
you worried at all about how you looked. As in to other people. Which all
kidding aside who doesn’t. Good old aural telephone calls could be fielded
without makeup, toupee, surgical prostheses, etc. Even without clothes, if
that sort of thing rattled your saber. But for the image-conscious, there was
of course no such answer-as-you-are informality about visual-video telephone
calls, which consumers began to see were less like having the good old phone
ring than having the doorbell ring and having to throw on clothes and attach
prostheses and do hair- checks in the foyer mirror before answering the door._
"

[http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527](http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527)

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gumby
They are more like tone of voice.

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VA3FXP
You do not need emoji.

You need to communicate. Clear, concise, eloquent, and precise use of english*
allows this to occur. The reason that this breaks down is because too often
people resort/revert to using slang or not thinking before they write.

You end up with text equivalent of 'verbal diarrhea'.

I do not know what 99% of those "pacman" faces are supposed to mean. Maybe
it's because I'm on the Autistic scale and I have trouble reading expressions,
maybe it's because I'm an 'old fart' and these kids need to get off my lawn.

I understand that emoji are just a simple evolution from emoticons. I do not
understand why we needed to expand on:

=) or =(

TFA posits that emoji are "body language" for internet communication. If
people just wrote what they fucking meant this wouldn't be an issue. (Look at
the constant misunderstandings that arise from sarcasm or lack thereof, for an
excellent representation of poor writing.)

*Disclaimer about my own ignorance: I don't know if non-english speakers suffer the same follies as english. English is a sloppy, imprecise language. It takes effort to clearly convey a message that cannot be misconstrued.

~~~
scatters
Emoji are an advance over emoticons because they have a standardized
description. For example, if you encounter you can find that it is U+1F625
DISAPPOINTED BUT RELIEVED FACE, allowing you to know that the sender intended
to convey a combination of disappointment and relief.

~~~
jimktrains2
This? [https://emojipedia.org/disappointed-but-relieved-
face/](https://emojipedia.org/disappointed-but-relieved-face/) I always
thought it was an emphatic sad, not relieved. Literally none of those emoji's
look relieved. Even the Samsung one looks like it's wailing in grief.

I agree with GP, most of these
[https://emojipedia.org/google/](https://emojipedia.org/google/) are
indistinguishable to me. Almost none of them look like their name "GRINNING
FACE WITH SMILING EYES" looks to be in pain.

I realize that emojis are often replacing the body language queues we send
each other, but they're significantly more ambiguous. There's maybe 5 faces
:'( :( :) :* :/ that I use and that's about it. They seem to be sufficient to
convey the additional emotional context for me.

~~~
freehunter
Yeah I've always thought that one was unbridled grief. Disappointed but
relieved? How? How is that in any way disappointed but relieved? The face is
sweating, which people do when they are nervous or anxious. The mouth is
frowning, which people do when they are upset. The eyebrows are curved
downwards which people do when they are sad. And in a lot of the
representations, the drop of water is under the eye, signaling that the face
is crying. There is not a single emotion that face is expressing that could be
interpreted as positive like the word "relieved" indicates.

That face is not disappointed but relieved. That face is 100% stricken with
grief. That's the emoji I send to my wife when she texts me and says she's
having a bad day.

~~~
kissickas
There are many HNers who know much more about Japan than I do, but I'm pretty
sure the tear on the side is meant to represent relief. Imagine it in an
anime. I'm not sure why it's a frown and now a shocked face/smile, though.

Here's a short article I found on a few other misinterpreted emoji:
[https://www.wired.com/2015/05/using-emoji-
wrong/](https://www.wired.com/2015/05/using-emoji-wrong/)

~~~
astrobe_
People don't know how to quote in mail and forum posts, and one expect them to
use emoji "correctly"?

