The main difference between Emoticon and Emoji

Since starting to talk to each other through the use of a keyboard and screen, people have used emoticons, smiley and emoji to fill the gaps. You don't show nuances or intonation when texting, so putting in a smiley icon makes sure the message conveys the emotion you want.

But there is a difference between emoticon and emoji. Find out more about this issue with TipsMake.com via the following article!

Is the emoticon and emoji the same?

Emoticon and emoji are not the same. The two terms have been used interchangeably by even the big names in the media like the New York Times and the BBC, but in fact, they are different things.

The cause of confusion is that both emoticon and emoji are used to augment 'spice' for dry text conversations. And even the names of these two concepts sound similar.

But the difference between them is really simple: Emoticon is a combination of symbols available on the keyboard, such as letters and punctuation marks, and emoji are images. The article will explain this in more detail in the next section.

What is an emoticon?

As the article explained briefly above, the emoticon is a set of punctuation marks, letters and numbers arranged to resemble the human face. Each emoticon is more or less understood in a general way and represents an emotion, or sometimes a certain object. For example :-D means laughing or grinning, -O is a surprise and <3 is the most heart-shaped symbol.

Even so, Western and Eastern culture has completely different emoticons. The emoticons of the West must be read horizontally, respectively from left to right, while the Eastern emoticons do not need to rotate and can sometimes use non-Latin characters.

The main difference between Emoticon and Emoji Picture 1

The emoticon comes from an overly funny joke

In 1982, Neil Schwartz published a physics puzzle related to mercury and a candle on the message board of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The colleague of Neil Schwartz and Howard Gayle then issued a warning with the following content:

"WARNING! Due to a recent physical experiment, the leftmost elevator has been contaminated with mercury. There is also some minor damage caused by fire. Decontamination will be completed before 8:00 PM. Friday'.

It's easy to predict what happened next: The joke has become a terrible mistake and panicked the students in the school. And that is said to be the reason why emoticon was born.

Dr. Scott E. Fahlman, a computer scientist at CMU, suggested that all jokes on the bulletin board must be marked with a character set :-), which looks like a smiley face when turned to one side. Another set of characters, :-(, will come with all the serious posts. These typeface faces are then spread on the web and called emoticon or emotion icon.

What is Emoji?

Emoji is a hieroglyph or small image that can display anything, from smiling faces, mangoes or cigarette butts. New emojis appear every year to please smartphone users. The word emoji basically means 'picture character' (in Japanese, e means that the image and moji are letters and characters).

Several thousand emoji have corresponding code in Unicode, a standard in computing for coding. Messaging applications, social networks and browsers read this code, then show you a suitable image. Different software may have slightly different graphics, which is why the emoticons you send from iPhone are not exactly the same as what people see on Android phones.

The main difference between Emoticon and Emoji Picture 2

Some emoji and emoticon are interchangeable

What makes things more ambiguous is that some emoji have identical emoticon copies. Most yellow round faces on smartphones have the corresponding character sets you may or may not remember, depending on your age.

Some of them are difficult to explain if you don't know what their original meaning is, like : $ corresponds to the Flushed Face emoji. Others are very recognizable, such as ',: - | Symbolize the face with a raised eyebrow. Some other non-face emoji also have 'twin brothers' typography (works of art expressed in words). the broken heart symbol, @} -> - and a few other character sets symbolizing roses, and even * <| :?) also symbolizes Santa!

What is Smiley?

The article will introduce another term here and we must solve this problem. In general, smiley is a graphical representation of a smiley face, regardless of form. The original emoticon :-) is counted as a smiley and Slightly emoji Smiling Face (light smiling face).

Previously, smiley was a yellow smiley face designed in 1963 and became a symbol of Rave culture (translated into Vietnamese as 'quack' culture). But when the emoticon appears in the chat room, people also start calling them smiley. In ICQ, Yahoo Messenger and other transfer-like hangouts in the other two centuries, smiley becomes more complex, diverse and even more animated.

The main difference between Emoticon and Emoji Picture 3

How and when does emoji replace emoticon?

Shigetaka Kurita, in charge of the interface design for a mobile operator in Japan, created the first famous emoji in 1999. Other emoji appeared two years ago, but the 1999 emoji set became popular in Japan, because mobile operators have added it to their messaging features.

According to Shigetaka Kurita's interview with news site Vice, the first emoji ever created is a heart symbol. Faces with many different emotions, inspired by the people the designer sees in the city. The first set includes a total of 176 icons, representing things like emotions, weather, sports and everyday items.

In 2010, emoji were added to the Unicode standard and that allowed tech giants like Apple and Google to bring emoji to their users, through devices manufactured by these companies. When iPhone and Android users can add those cute little pictures to their messages and posts, they also feel happier. The emoticon, once 'dominating' text messages, is getting less and less used now.

As you know, until now emoji have pushed a lot of emoticons out of online conversations. But if you're still nostalgic about Shruggie, there are some websites to copy and paste emoticon, emoji, etc. for reference like: copyshrug.com, lennyfaces.net, kawaiiface.net, copyandpasteemoji.com, megaemoji.com or lenny-face-generator.textsmilies.com

Emoji has taken over messenger conversations, captioned on Instagram and sometimes emailed. So if you're going to use them, just use them the way you want!

There are many tricks that allow you to get more emoji to choose from or give appropriate emoji feedback faster. You can expand your selection with an alternative emoji keyboard, using the predictive text feature to ask your phone to replace text with emoji, etc. The possibilities are endless.

If you are not sure how to use emoji, refer to some articles on TipsMake.com such as how to turn on emoji keyboard on iPhone, how to insert emoticons (smiley face) in Outlook email. You already know how to use emoticons on Windows 10 ?, etc. for more details.