What’s the Difference Between Emoji and Emoticons?

The Internet has greatly changed the way we communicate. Since body language and verbal tone do not translate in our text messages or e-mails, we’ve developed alternate ways to convey nuanced meaning. The most prominent change to our online style has been the addition of two new-age hieroglyphic languages: emoticons and emoji.

Let’s start with the older of the two: the emoticon. Emoticons are punctuation marks, letters, and numbers used to create pictorial icons that generally display an emotion or sentiment. (That’s actually where the portmanteau “emoticon” comes from: emotional icon.) Oh, and because of the limits of our keyboard, most emoticons need to be read sideways.

The emoticon came into being after a joke went wrong at Carnegie Mellon University in 1982. A gag about a fake mercury spill posted to an online message board sent the university into a tizzy, and because of this confusion, Dr. Scott E. Fahlman suggested that jokes and nonjokes be marked by two sets of characters we now recognize as standard emoticons: the smiley face :-) and the frowning face :-(. After this, emoticons were a big hit among Internet users.

Emoji (from the Japanese e, “picture,” and moji, “character”) are a slightly more recent invention. Not to be confused with their predecessor, emoji are pictographs of faces, objects, and symbols. You’re probably familiar with the distinct style of Apple’s emoji: yellow cartoony faces with various expressions, as well as families, buildings, animals, food objects, mathematical symbols, and more.

Shigetaka Kurita is often credited with inventing emoji in 1999, though Japanese conglomerate SoftBank actually released the first set of emojis in 1997. Kurita’s emoji, which were intended for a Japanese user base, were very simple—only 12 pixels by 12 pixels—and were inspired by manga art and kanji characters. In order to attract Japanese customers, Apple hid an emoji keyboard in the first iPhone back in 2007, but North American users quickly became aware of the keyboard. Now, emoji are available in almost all messaging apps, and while different apps have distinct emoji styles, emoji can translate across platforms, thanks to Unicode. This is why an iPhone user is able to receive the smiling pile of poo emoji from someone using a Samsung Galaxy.

So, if you come across a smiley face that contains a character you can find on your computer keyboard, it’s an emoticon. If it’s a little cartoon figure that is free from the binds of punctuation, numbers, and letters, it’s an emoji.