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X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

blog.emojipedia.org

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Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#301

Post by bathtub365 »

cmiles74 wrote: post #226
Alupis wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems like approximately the dumbest possible place to have political battles. Isn't the entire purpose of having a standard set of emojis as part of Unicode to enable reliable communication of the concepts and emotions associated with them? Does anyone see what's happened here? A small group of people made a political decision and force changed the pistol emoji into a water gun. Then... later on, someone else…

The phrase "small group of people" is doing a lot of work, I think. We had the largest technology/media companies in the country making similar changes.

All of the employees of all of those companies combined are still a small group of people compared to the number subjected to the results of their decisions.

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#303

Post by JohnFen »

relaxing wrote: post #284
JohnFen wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exactly this that makes Unicode the wrong place to define emojis.

You’re allowed to make your letters however you want too, even if they’re ambiguous.

The difference is that the alphabet has well-defined meaning. Stylistic differences in the appearance of letters doesn't alter those meanings. This is not so true with emojis. Their meaning is directly determined by their appearance and so stylistic differences can alter their meaning.

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#304

Post by anonfordays »

AlexeyBelov wrote: post #296
anonfordays wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My point is just that changing it back now is not undoing the damage, it's creating even more damage That's just like, your opinion man! Some of us view it as the Internet healing.

Fresh anonymous accounts?

You lost? You respond to the wrong person?

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#305

Post by JohnFen »

PostOnce wrote: post #264
JohnFen wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. One of the reasons why I hesitate to use emojis is that there isn't enough standardization of what they look like. I've seen texts I've written that include them on other devices and have been pretty dismayed that that even relatively minor visual differences can make a huge difference in the meaning I intended vs the meaning that was actually received. The water pistol/gun thing is this taken to an extreme.…

In my experience, the water pistol was still used to denote violence, it was just dressed up to somehow make big tech feel less culpable for violent(ly emotional) social media.

As with all emojis, what they mean depends on the social group using them. In my social group, the gun version was never used for anything. When it became a water pistol, though, it started to get used to indicate a certain sort of playfulness.

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#306

Post by yencabulator »

philistine wrote: post #271
ploxiln wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more, fonts having multiple colors in a glyph was a huge complexity explosion for font rendering, for terminals, and more. You can see a very quick technical summary of different ways of encoding colors in fonts here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenType#Color_fonts But anyway, images should have remained separate things, png or whatever. Fonts rendering is complex enough with complex scripts e.g. Arabic, but…

You want to stay stuck in the past, that's your call. I for one stay fascinated by the prospect of colour being introduced into written languages to denote intent now that we don't have to grapple with ink. We're talking on the scale of centuries, but even Arrival didn't have the guts to include colour into the lexicon of its alien language. With, of course, accessibility for those needing it.

You can use colors in your document or email without needing it to be in a font.

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#307

Post by consteval »

waterhouse wrote: post #151
qual wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Not the person you were replying to) I'm curious what/how you define "woke culture", because the only definitions of "woke" I've ever heard are basically "thing I don't like" or "the left". Neither of those definitions have helped me understand what you are so vehemently against. Can you help me understand what woke culture is to you? This is a genuine question.

(Not the person you were asking, either) In one sentence, wokeness is aggressively pursuing racial (and other identity-based) conflict above everything else, not caring what else you trample on (including even classic civil rights principles). "Microaggressions" is probably the most distinctively woke concept. Censoring gun emojis is not woke in that respect, since it doesn't pursue any particular identity conflict (…

I think micro-aggressions are very real, but maybe the word is a little off. They're not aggressive necessarily, but they are micro.

What I mean is that definitely phrases and questions change meaning, a tiny bit, based off of historical understanding of race and gender. On the surface it seems like a wild proposition, but it's really true.

- wow you're so articulate! - your hair looks so clean! - don't you like this kind of music? - you're a better driver than I expected! - you're so nurturing!

To you, or me, innocuous. But people say these things for a reason. I've never heard a white man be told he's articulate, or that his hair looks clean. Do you know what I mean?

These things are racially charged and "othering", regardless of if the perpetrator knows it or intends it. I'd say the vast majority of ANY prejudice is unconscious, meaning people don't know they're it.

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#308

Post by oooyay »

listless wrote: post #276
falcor84 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but literally don't understand how someone would get from "space ex" to "space sex" unless they are intentionally trying to stretch/double the consonant. To be clear, I'm willing to agree that it's a funny mispronunciation, but am unwilling to accept that this particular naming was an intentional juvenile joke by Musk. It's widely known he's a fan of the letter X, and I believe that fully…

Wait - it’s intentionally meant to sound like “space sex” right? I mean, it’s not 1:1 but it’s very close. Say it out loud 10 times. But maybe possible it’s just all about the letter X for him? Also, to clarify, I don’t dislike the guy. Nor do I dislike his naming. Just pointing out what I thought was the obvious.

Unless there's something I'm missing, he has a long history with being obsessed with naming things "X". Maybe it's a thing he thought about tongue in cheek, but I kind of doubt it's as intentional as folks in this thread are making it out to be.

fwiw, I don't like Elon and I think this whole thread is kinda distracting to actual points about Elon that don't need Olympic size hurdles to understand.

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#309

Post by kortilla »

itishappy wrote: post #234
kortilla wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition from AAVE is definitely not original. It’s a mutated version as well. The gun emoji had existed as a gun before as well for that many years. Nobody cared about rewriting text history on that change either.

I think we remember that differently. At the time I recall people caring quite a lot. You can find articles written about it on just about every mainstream media organization. I'm still a bit unclear on your position towards the current changes. Your post makes it sound like you oppose changes in general, but your tone makes me think it's specific to the change from 2016. How do you feel about the current changes?

People cared, but not the people making the changes.

I think the change back is good and we should very strongly push for immutable emoji. The first one was a massive mistake and years of using the squirt gun doesn’t justify it.

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#310

Post by kortilla »

EasyMark wrote: post #285
kortilla wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forced to say “space sex” out loud Unless your spoken English isn’t very good, it’s quite clear there is no “s” sound in the second half. Say “space sex” out loud and yes you’ll hear two distinct ‘s’ sounds. Not at all the same as “space ex”.

Nice to know that variations in spoken English are still used to segregate people into good and not very good groups rather than merit or personality. I apologize ahead of time for not using a solid Midwest Accent annunciated as per traditional evening news.

In which accent do you not pronounce the ‘s’ in sex? I’ll wait
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