
Emoji are showing up as evidence in court more frequently - nolawi89
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/18/18225231/emoji-emoticon-court-case-reference
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midgetjones
Emoji have really filled a gap, where words typed on the internet were missing
some context of how they are supposed to be read. And nowadays, whether or not
I add the eggplant emoji to the end of a whatsapp message can really change
how it's interpreted, and gives me less to excuse myself should it come up in
court.

But really, anything that removes doubt and clarity from a conversation has
got to be a good thing. How many internet arguments have been spared because
someone could attach a winky face to show that they were being impish and not
to take offence? Obviously, old people hate them, but I can see emoji melding
into all forms of language in the future. Or even the global language
:thinking-face:

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ddeokbokki
People will argue that you should be able to convey your message clearly in
plain English but those people don't realise that: \- Not everyone masters
English (even when it's your mother tongue, not everyone has access to the
same education to be able to use it perfectly) \- Languages are complex, we
don't talk with words only, we use facial expressions and gestures, emojis
help mimic those when only words are available.

~~~
huffmsa
If you have the time to consider what you're going to say, like in written
communication, then yes, you should be able to do it with just words. Take
your time, figure out what you want to say.

~~~
tuesdayrain
Somehow I'm not convinced that it's better to convey my message by writing "I
am flirting with you" rather than by just adding a winking or smiling emoji.

~~~
nulbyte
You could literally replace that emoji with the well known phrase "wink,
wink." It is well understood and avoids the ambiguity of emoji.

~~~
tremon
I'm not a native English speaker, but I associate the phrase "wink, wink" with
lechery more than with flirting.

That said, I also don't usually associate the wink emoji with flirting, but
more with tongue-in-cheek fun. Context matters I guess.

~~~
reificator
[https://youtu.be/4Kwh3R0YjuQ](https://youtu.be/4Kwh3R0YjuQ)

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anoncake
> Despite the potential for emoji to be interpreted in a wide array of ways,
> emoji experts don’t really exist. “Emoji usually have dialects. They draw
> meaning from their context. You could absolutely talk about emoji as a
> phenomenon, but as for what a particular emoji means, you probably wouldn’t
> go to a linguist. You would probably go to someone who’s familiar with that
> community, just like they did with the sex trafficking case,” Goldman says.

What does Goldman think linguists do when they research the meaning of words?

~~~
cookieswumchorr
emojis are not something strictly defined. They vary across messaging
platforms and clients, or versions of clients. Sometimes it means that the
person sending them sees a different image then the recepient, which also can
lead do different interpretation

~~~
sandworm101
I'm reminded of the UK PM, David Cameron, who signed many emails "LOL". He
though it meant 'lots of love'.

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huffmsa
> _After sending an enthusiastic text confirming that they wanted the
> apartment,_

Anyone who sends little yellow men as part of a business conversation deserves
whatever misfortune befalls them.

Anyone who conducts a business conversation over any medium but snail mail,
fax, email or the phone deserves whatever misfortune befalls them.

I know this is old-fashioned, but business is business, personal is personal.

~~~
amelius
> I know this is old-fashioned, but business is business, personal is
> personal.

People are mixing the personal domain and business all the time. For example:
in business meetings, people smile and they tell jokes; also, business people
often go out for dinner together.

~~~
huffmsa
Yes, but we have 50,000 years of evolutionary practice understand what a smile
means in real life.

And we recognize that we still don't all interpret those smiles the same way,
as is evident in many legal codes not enforcing "handshake" deals, and written
agreements almost always supercede oral ones.

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Cthulhu_
It should always be taken with a grain of salt; I guess you can make sweeping
statements like "positive/negative tone", but you should be careful
attributing exact meanings to it. I mean to some, an eggplant is an eggplant,
to others it's a penis. There will be community specific meanings attributed
to certain emoji, often unspoken or even unaware.

~~~
icebraining
Just like with words, or colors, or mostly any kind of element of
communication.

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notimetorelax
I frequently use the greening teeth emoji on my iPhone as a negative. Now I
know that my Android addressees interpret this as positive.

~~~
TeMPOraL
There's one very popular emoji I particularly hate:
[https://emojipedia.org/face-with-tears-of-joy/](https://emojipedia.org/face-
with-tears-of-joy/).

Why? Because a) it looks bad (one of the worst made emojis out there), and b)
when someone sends it to me, I have no clue what they mean. While it's
technically "crying with joy", it also resembles crying with despair - and
with regular people, who don't even know what "emoji" is or that they have
names, I can't be 100% sure which interpretation they picked.

~~~
jobigoud
It has a big smile. How would you interpret this as despair?

~~~
huffmsa
Cultural or psychological differences in interpreting facial expressions. It's
clearly not despair to me. The mouth is upturned, which indicates smiling.

But to someone who can't easily differentiate upturned from downturned, it
might be despair.

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TeMPOraL
In blown-up version like this it's easier to see the upturn. In smaller
renderings, like in Facebook & Google products on my desktop and on the phone
(or pixelated copy-pastes of it on top of Facebook videos), the rendering sits
squarely in the uncanny valley for me. It looks like smiling, but then it
looks also like the face is in great pain, with all the muscles contracted,
squeezing tears out of its tear ducts.

~~~
huffmsa
I suppose the guy who I'm responding to is expecting you to be familiar enough
with the full selection of emoji to know that it's definitely the tears of joy
emoji and that there isn't a nearly identical one for despair.

It'd be a poor design decision if there were. But it's also unreasonable to
expect everyone to think like a good interaction designer.

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sct202
My friend went bankrupt and a bunch of us had loaned him a little money as a
stop gap, and he submitted our Facebook messages as screenshots as proof of
the debt he owed us.

