Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Your brain on emoji

nautil.us

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 184 posts

Re: Your brain on emoji

#71

Post by willio58 »

baz00 wrote: post #3
WaffleIronMaker wrote: post #2

I'm surprised to see the spread of emoji attributed to Microsoft in the initial sentences. It's possible that the author may be referring to the smiley faces in extended character pages, or maybe Webdings, but I generally associate the term 'emoji' with Unicode characters specifically, which I believe to have been petitioned by Google and popularized by Apple. Interesting article either way.

I think it's a little unfair to attribute it to Microsoft and MSN Messenger as it was a concept that originated on Japanese phones AFAIK. Also Microsoft's emojis are currently the worst by a mile out of the big tech companies.

Yeah the original way to get emojis on iPhone was to go in and enable a keyboard hidden among the Japanese category of languages in settings. While apps existed that just basically gave directions for how to enable that.

Re: Your brain on emoji

#72

Post by loganc2342 »

hammock wrote: post #46
jodrellblank wrote: post #44

I'm starting to find them emotionally manipulative in a bad way. FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browser. Especially when I'm using BrowserTamer[1] to intercept all URL launches so I can feed a few work URLs to Edge and Chrome, and FireFox as the default for everything else, so it effectively is my default browser. It's not the only piece of software behaving s…

>FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browser. The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Also - what about iPhones stubbornly showing green texts from Android messagers? That's not even "I'm sad you're using Android." It's more a passive-aggressive "I'm going to degrad…

The green bubble has nothing to do with with iPhone vs Android, it has to do with iMessage vs a regular text message. iMessages typically use data and text messages typically don’t. Furthermore, iMessages have greater features that obviously can’t be delivered to people who don’t use iMessage, like reactions and effects. iPhone users who use a different messaging app also have green bubbles, as do messages sent as a text message while off of data.

Re: Your brain on emoji

#73

Post by majormajor »

hammock wrote: post #46
jodrellblank wrote: post #44

I'm starting to find them emotionally manipulative in a bad way. FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browser. Especially when I'm using BrowserTamer[1] to intercept all URL launches so I can feed a few work URLs to Edge and Chrome, and FireFox as the default for everything else, so it effectively is my default browser. It's not the only piece of software behaving s…

>FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browser. The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Also - what about iPhones stubbornly showing green texts from Android messagers? That's not even "I'm sad you're using Android." It's more a passive-aggressive "I'm going to degrad…

> The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you.

Firefox is not a person, why should it have "preferences"? It's a tool. Tools should be used because they're useful, not because they "prefer to be used."

Re: Your brain on emoji

#74

Post by raincole »

hammock wrote: post #46
jodrellblank wrote: post #44

I'm starting to find them emotionally manipulative in a bad way. FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browser. Especially when I'm using BrowserTamer[1] to intercept all URL launches so I can feed a few work URLs to Edge and Chrome, and FireFox as the default for everything else, so it effectively is my default browser. It's not the only piece of software behaving s…

>FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browser. The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Also - what about iPhones stubbornly showing green texts from Android messagers? That's not even "I'm sad you're using Android." It's more a passive-aggressive "I'm going to degrad…

> The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you.

Because I'm a person and Firefox is a tool? How is it irony? Next time you're going to say Firefox can set my diet just like I can set its search engine?

Re: Your brain on emoji

#75

Post by joshxyz »

loganc2342 wrote: post #72
hammock wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browser. The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Also - what about iPhones stubbornly showing green texts from Android messagers? That's not even "I'm sad you're using Android." It's more a passive-aggressive "I'm going to degrad…

The green bubble has nothing to do with with iPhone vs Android, it has to do with iMessage vs a regular text message. iMessages typically use data and text messages typically don’t. Furthermore, iMessages have greater features that obviously can’t be delivered to people who don’t use iMessage, like reactions and effects. iPhone users who use a different messaging app also have green bubbles, as do messages sent as a…

yes this. green messages imply the person has poor internet reception e.g. when out of town or during heavy storms

Re: Your brain on emoji

#76

Post by raincole »

sickcodebruh wrote: post #26

I was also a holdout until I saw emojis described as "body language for text". That helps contextualize them and let me appreciate them. They let you add so much nuance and personality to text. In a world of async communication, they can be crucial signifiers of intent.

Unless you're specifically trained for that, it's very hard to fake body language and facial expression. That's the whole point to it.

And it doesn't apply to emoji.

Re: Your brain on emoji

#77

Post by Hamuko »

loganc2342 wrote: post #72
hammock wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browser. The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Also - what about iPhones stubbornly showing green texts from Android messagers? That's not even "I'm sad you're using Android." It's more a passive-aggressive "I'm going to degrad…

The green bubble has nothing to do with with iPhone vs Android, it has to do with iMessage vs a regular text message. iMessages typically use data and text messages typically don’t. Furthermore, iMessages have greater features that obviously can’t be delivered to people who don’t use iMessage, like reactions and effects. iPhone users who use a different messaging app also have green bubbles, as do messages sent as a…

I actually get green text bubbles from a relative with an iPhone because they send messages to my work number whereas my iMessage is tied to my personal number.

Re: Your brain on emoji

#78

Post by numpad0 »

jodrellblank wrote: post #54
hammock wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browser. The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Also - what about iPhones stubbornly showing green texts from Android messagers? That's not even "I'm sad you're using Android." It's more a passive-aggressive "I'm going to degrad…

What's emotionally manipulative about "should"? ... what's degrading about green?

There are supposedly psychological effects in using green at all, and there is also a known controversy over green bubble used on iOS bundled Messages app[1][2]. As for "should", not sure about that...

1: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-...

2: https://uxdesign.cc/how-apple-makes-you-think-green-bubbles-...

Re: Your brain on emoji

#79

Post by deathanatos »

dijit wrote: post #11
frereubu wrote: post #4

I was a hold-out for quite a while, like the author, because they felt very twee. The one that convinced me though was the thumbs-up emoji, which can be an entire reply to an email or text, that says "I've read this, and we don't need to continue the conversation", with undertones of agreement or a thank-you. Somehow single-word replies like "Gotcha" or "Yes" felt too curt, and anything longer invited further discuss…

Yet (and I'm sorry to generalise); Gen-Z "typically finds thumbs up emoji passive aggressive" https://nypost.com/2022/10/26/gen-z-has-hidden-meanings-for-...

AFAICT, the entire "Gen Z finds thumbs up passive aggressive" is fake news; it got started somewhere, and then copy/pasted across news sites with nobody doing an ounce of journalistic fact checking. E.g., this chain [1] → [2] → [3] chains back to the Reddit post ([3]) which has a grand total of … 26 upvotes (on the day the Today article is written)? … and AFAICT, the reddit post is what kicks off the news copypastafest. That's not a reliable source to then label an entire generation. "Journalists" getting their "facts" from r/Adulting … sigh. (Note that your NYPost article falls, chronologically, between [1] and [2], and note the dates on them all. There's a few other citations in the Today post … like an employee at Today, tweets, (it must have been a rather slow week) … and a (different) NYPost article whose citation is … the same Reddit post! The closet we get is then a jump to a Yahoo article which claims an unsourced survey for its data.)

(AFAICT talking to people, everyone I've seen who thinks this is a thing appears to think such because they've encountered these news posts / reposts of this, not because they genuinely hold the belief themselves. Self-fulfilling prophecy, at this point. Though now that I've invoked a weird form of Cunningham's Law, I'm sure someone will tell me they're the one, and that there are dozens of them out there. Tell me why you can't just read :+1: in an "assume best intent" light and treat it as the literal "ack/agree/yes" that it's probably meant as, and what, you want me to spam everyone with reply notifications instead of just a reaction…?)

(There is also an episode of Dr. Phil out there that goes into how a bunch of emoji are supposedly poisoned one way or another, again with nary a citation to most of it, or they're saying "X emoji is ruined" where, no, it's only ruined if you use it in a particular context where the meaning of the emoji isn't the original meaning, but rather the context puns it to something else. Cf. the eggplant emoji.)

[1]: https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2022/10/28/gen-z-thumbs-up-...

[2]: https://www.today.com/news/news/thumbs-up-emoji-debate-rcna5...

[3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20221013050626/https://www.reddi...

Re: Your brain on emoji

#80

Post by jamesdwilson »

majormajor wrote: post #73
hammock wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browser. The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Also - what about iPhones stubbornly showing green texts from Android messagers? That's not even "I'm sad you're using Android." It's more a passive-aggressive "I'm going to degrad…

> The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Firefox is not a person, why should it have "preferences"? It's a tool. Tools should be used because they're useful, not because they "prefer to be used."

It could be argued that the user above chose to use Firefox. They chose to use this in their minds inferior tool or a tool with an undesirable feature. They made that decision.

> A bad workman always blames his tools –Old proverb

Post reply on HN