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Rounding up the emojisโฆ
Rounding up the emojisโฆ
People use "emoji" and "emoticon" interchangeably, but they are fundamentally different things. Emoticons are text-based expressions made from keyboard characters. Emoji are graphical symbols defined by the Unicode Standard. Here is the complete breakdown.
By ACiDek ยท Updated February 2025 ยท 8 min read
A sequence of keyboard characters that represents a facial expression.
:-) ;-) :-D <3
A standardized pictograph defined by Unicode and rendered as a graphic.
๐ ๐ ๐ โค๏ธ
| Feature | Emoticon | Emoji |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Text characters that form a face | Graphical Unicode character |
| Example | :-) ;-) :P :( | ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ |
| Technology | ASCII/keyboard characters | Unicode Standard codepoints |
| Origin | 1982 (Scott Fahlman, Carnegie Mellon) | 1999 (Shigetaka Kurita, NTT DoCoMo) |
| Platform look | Same everywhere (plain text) | Varies by platform (Apple, Google, etc.) |
| Scope | Mostly faces/expressions | Faces, objects, animals, flags, symbols โ 3,600+ |
| Input method | Type on keyboard | Emoji keyboard, picker, or copy-paste |
| Rendering | Always text | Rendered as images/graphics |
| Cultural reach | Western-dominated | Global standard |
| Ambiguity | Low (text is text) | Higher (designs differ across platforms) |
On September 19, 1982, computer scientist Scott Fahlman at Carnegie Mellon University proposed using :-) and :-( to indicate jokes vs serious statements on the university bulletin board system. This is widely credited as the birth of the Western emoticon.
However, text-based expressions predate Fahlman. In 1881, the American humor magazine Puckpublished typographical art showing joy, melancholy, indifference, and astonishment using punctuation. And Japanese users independently developed their own style โ kaomoji (face marks) โ which read horizontally rather than sideways: (^_^) for happy, (T_T) for crying.
Through the 1990s and 2000s, emoticons became essential internet culture. MSN Messenger, AIM, and Yahoo Messenger all auto-converted emoticons into small graphics โ a precursor to modern emoji.
Emoji were invented by Shigetaka Kurita, an artist at the Japanese telecom company NTT DoCoMo. Kurita created a set of 176 12x12 pixel icons for the i-mode mobile internet platform. The word "emoji" comes from Japanese: e (็ตต = picture) + moji (ๆๅญ = character). Despite the similarity, it has no etymological connection to "emotion."
Japanese carriers KDDI and SoftBank created their own incompatible emoji sets, leading to a fragmentation problem. In 2010, the Unicode Consortium standardized emoji as part of Unicode 6.0, making them work across all platforms and devices. Apple was the first Western platform to adopt them (iOS 5, 2011), and Google followed shortly after on Android.
Today, Unicode 16.0 includes over 3,600 emoji, with new ones added annually. Read the full story in our History of Emojis page.
Here are the most well-known emoticons and the emoji that replaced them:
:-)โ๐Happy / Smiley:-(โ๐Sad / Frown;-)โ๐Wink:-Dโ๐Big grin / Laughing:-Pโ๐Tongue out / Playful:-Oโ๐ฎSurprised / Shocked:'-(โ๐ขCrying:-/โ๐Skeptical / Unsure:-|โ๐Neutral / Indifferent>:-(โ๐ AngryB-)โ๐Cool / Sunglasses:-*โ๐Kiss<3โโค๏ธHeart / LoveXDโ๐Laughing hard\o/โ๐Celebration / HurrayO_Oโ๐ณShocked / StaringKaomoji (้กๆๅญ, "face characters") are a Japanese style of emoticon that reads horizontally โ no head-tilting required. They use a wider range of Unicode characters to create expressive faces and even body gestures. Kaomoji remain popular in Japanese internet culture and among anime/gaming communities worldwide, even in the age of emoji.
(โฏยฐโกยฐ)โฏ๏ธต โปโโปTable flip / Rageยฏ\_(ใ)_/ยฏShrug / Whatever(ใโใฎโ)ใ*:ใปใโงMagic / Sparkle(เธ โข_โข)เธFighting / Ready(โโฟโ)Happy / Content(โฅ_โฅ)Crying / SadสโขแดฅโขสBear face / Cute( อกยฐ อส อกยฐ)Lenny face / SuggestiveThe fundamental technical difference is encoding. An emoticon like :-) is three separate ASCII characters: colon (U+003A), hyphen (U+002D), and closing parenthesis (U+0029). Your computer transmits and displays exactly those three characters.
An emoji like ๐ is a single Unicode codepoint: U+1F60A (SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES). When transmitted, it is encoded as a 4-byte UTF-8 sequence: F0 9F 98 8A. The receiving device then renders this codepoint using its own emoji font โ which is why the same emoji looks different on Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft devices.
This difference matters for developers: emoticons are simple text (3-5 bytes), while emoji can be complex multi-codepoint sequences. A family emoji (๐จโ๐ฉโ๐งโ๐ฆ) is actually 7 codepoints joined by Zero Width Joiners (ZWJ), requiring up to 25 bytes of UTF-8. Learn more in our ZWJ Sequences article and Unicode Lookup tool.
In 2025, emoji have largely replaced emoticons in everyday communication. However, emoticons still have their place: