Last night I sent a message to a person who is taking care of her boyfriend in the hospital. She was exhausted and feeling defeated and I sent her a tweet of sympathy and what I hoped was validation for their most recent and shitty choice. In it I put the “shit” emoji. On my emoji keyboard it’s just a pile of poo, no face. 
After it posted on twitter it had a face that looks like surprised, possibly smiling pile of poo. 
It changes the entire emotional impact of the thing. To say the least.
A new language is evolving. A language of emoji. But rather than everyone the world over having the same picture, we have let every goddamn company design their own emoji picture – and so now we can’t speak to each other in what could POTENTIALLY be a universal language.
Because you can’t trust that they are going to get message you sent.
Unicode specifies “pile of poo” for these ASCII characters but every platform can interpret the pile of poo differently. Adding a face to a pile of poo vs a wave of smell means those two pictures have 2 different connotations.
Take the grinning smile for example: Look below and tell me that which of those grins look like the grimace of someone on a toilet with constipation? 
You know I’m right. Apple, Facebook, Emojione and Twitter’s Graphic Artists need more fiber in their diet. I’m not going to send that and expect that someone is thinking I’m thrilled with something. I’m going to be afraid they will think I’m begging for fiber.
Samsung and LG nailed it. But don’t use it on your LG phone just because it looks great on it. You friend with the apple is going to be wondering if you are in pain.
I don’t understand how this opportunity for creating a world language could have been so horribly missed. WHY in a world that constantly feels the language barrier problem could the idiots with power at Unicode not hire someone to make each emoji, and then handed those out with the code? WHY? They could have saved countless horrible and embarrassing moments.
Fucking Morons. 😤
It's a Thought 
to me, the only answer is to actually write one another, assuming that, as in my case, some whacko isn’t stalking ie editing what you say. Is the long-term goal maybe total non-communication
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Yes, but writing isn’t really full communication. Much of the emotional context is lost when we use written language instead of spoken language. And some of that is lost without being face to face with a person.
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The whole emoji thing is just plain silly. They’re very easily misunderstood, often crude, even insulting. It is basically a giant step backward in communications, a movement from clearly expressed thoughts using precise language, to the use of poorly understood, often misinterpreted and badly designed pictograms.
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Yes. But in the current age of text they do help convey some form of emotional intention, which is often lost in any form of written communication. There is a fine line between being an asshole and being funny. Most of that intention is lost in writing.
Humans communicate primarily with tone of voice and physical expression. Words are only conveying a portion of our intention.
And with the advent of the smart phone emoji would seem to be the aid we need.
I don’t seriously think emoji will remove language, but if were properly and deeply expanded and universal it certainly has some potential as a language.
Not anymore, obviously, since they didn’t do the universal part of it.
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You don’t want to use the FB emoji and have people think you need more fiber?
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I only ever use one of these emoji’s –
🙂
And what it ends up meaning is “I am afraid you won’t understand that I am kidding / joking/ being ironic. So I am adding a visual clue.”
My older daughter uses them all the time. I have come to understand that the number of hearts she sends someone is inversely proportional to how much she actually likes them.
I honestly don’t get the entire emoji universe.
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Wow! This un-tech Turtle dealing with only old fashioned phones (mine does not even carry emojis) and dated computers had no idea , my smilies would look different depending on the browser or app .
Turtle Hugs 🙂 – do you see me smiling or grimacing ??
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;-D
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