• JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      2 days ago

      If we’re incredibly generous with what we call emoji then old MSN seahorses might count (if they actually existed, that is). Emojis aren’t all part of the spec. They predated the spec and colloquially people don’t mean the spec. Plus, Unicode has always been about matching human usage of things, not dictating how humans communicate. So if you apply the way emoji was used to refer to icons on phones before they were in Unicode, I think you could argue that a seahorse icon in MSN messenger was an emoji.

      • lunarul@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Wtf are you on about? Emoji existed since the 80s and the ones in IM apps were the most popular examples. It’s not “incredibly generous” to call them emoji, that’s what we called them back then, long before they started being included in unicode.

        Unicode has always been about matching human usage of things

        Exactly. Emoji usage was so widespread and popular, that they decided to standardize it.

          • lunarul@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            If we’re incredibly generous with what we call emoji

            This (and all the other "if"s in the comment) implies you do not agree that pre-unicode emoji count as emoji. I find that an extremely odd stance considering the popularity of emoji during those times.