Emoji, once regarded as some kind of frivolous nonsense, have become an important way we communicate online. But how did these little pictures come to our devices? What is the Unicode Consortium, and how did they get involved? And who is the Levitating Suit Guy? Fear not; author Keith Houston is here to give us the whole story in front of a live audience. Keith is the author of Face With Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji.
Timestamps
00:00 Start
02:21 Introducing Keith Houston, author of Face With Tears of Joy
03:28 Put your top five emoji in chat
08:03 What’s the state of emoji now?
10:11 How did the Unicode Consortium get involved?
22:30 The strange history of Levitating Suit Guy
27:37 The latest emoji in v17.0
30:12 Changes to some emoji
38:22 What gives an emoji staying power?
47:12 Related or Not: Theme by David
48:10 Related or Not 1: orchard and hoard
52:46 Related or Not 2: belle, bell, ball, & ball
59:01 Related or Not 3: Italian aceto (vinegar) & Spanish aceite (oil)
01:03:45 Why don’t they use emoji on Reddit?
01:05:26 Are emoji now more acceptable in serious contexts?
01:08:34 Do speakers of some languages use emoji more?
01:13:00 Any languages where they just don’t use emoji?
01:13:59 Does everyone call them “emoji”?
01:16:13 Sociolinguistic trends in emoji?
01:22:12 The reads: Which emoji is closest to your name?
01:33:06 Afterparty
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Become a Patron!Show notes
Face with Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji, by Keith Houston
https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324075158
Man in Business Suit Levitating emoji
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_Business_Suit_Levitating_emoji
The Secret Ska History of That Weird Levitating Businessman Emoji
https://www.newsweek.com/2016/05/06/secret-ska-history-man-business-suit-levitating-emoji-442192.html
What’s The Story Behind The Jumping Rude Boy Emoji?
http://marcoonthebass.blogspot.com/2017/01/whats-story-behind-jumping-rude-boy.html
What’s new in Unicode 7.0 ? | BabelStone Blog
https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2013/10/whats-new-in-unicode-70.html
How 2‑Tone brought new ideas about race and culture to young people beyond the inner cities
https://theconversation.com/how-2-tone-brought-new-ideas-about-race-and-culture-to-young-people-beyond-the-inner-cities-229135
History of the iconic “rude girl” art
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ska/comments/1e8aqg3/history_of_the_iconic_rude_girl_art/
Chart Increasing Emoji Meaning | Emojipedia
https://emojipedia.org/chart-increasing
Bigfoot footage: stabilized | Reddit, r/gifs
https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/1px7ej/bigfoot_footage_stabilized/
Emoji Proposals, v17.0
https://unicode.org/emoji/charts/emoji-proposals.html
Emoji Version 17.0 | Emojipedia
https://emojipedia.org/emoji-17.0
Apple Ditches Pistol Emoji In Favor Of Water Gun
https://www.knkx.org/news/2016-08-02/apple-ditches-pistol-emoji-in-favor-of-water-gun
Everything’s peachy as Apple restores emoji’s ‘bum’ features
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/16/everything-is-peachy-as-apple-restores-emojis-bum-features
Apple brings back the peach butt emoji | Reddit, r/apple
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/5d4cua/apple_brings_back_the_peach_butt_emoji/
Google Fixes Burger Emoji| Emojipedia
https://blog.emojipedia.org/google-fixes-burger-emoji/
Vaccine Emoji Comes to Life | Emojipedia
https://blog.emojipedia.org/vaccine-emoji-comes-to-life/
Mask Wearing Emoji Now Smiles
https://blog.emojipedia.org/mask-wearing-emoji-now-smiles/
iOS 17.4 Emoji Changelog (family silhouettes)
https://blog.emojipedia.org/ios-17-4-emoji-changelog/
Who Really Invented the Smiley Face?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/who-really-invented-the-smiley-face-2058483/
Unicode® Technical Standard #51
https://unicode.org/reports/tr51/#non-realistic
Beyond words: emoji patterns in cross-cultural branding
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-026-06821-z
Emoji are Effective Predictors of User’s Demographics
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3625007.3629129
Age and gender in language, emoji, and emoticon usage in instant messages
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563221003137
Emoji Use in the Electronic Health Record
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2843883
An empirical study of emoji usage on Twitter in linguistic and national contexts
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468696421000318
Emoji Semantic Change And Generational Variation In Digital Communication
https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/Emoji_Semantic_Change_And_Generational_Variation_In_Digital_Communication/30630281?file=59608607
Semantic Journeys: Quantifying Change in Emoji Meaning from 2012-2018
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2105.00846
New Apple Emojis For 2026 – Apple iOS 26.4 Emoji Changelog
https://blog.emojipedia.org/apple-ios-26-4-emoji-changelog/
Here’s a Fascinating Breakdown of Emoji Use by Country
https://time.com/3831060/emoji-use-by-country/
SwiftKey Emoji Report, April 2015
https://www.scribd.com/doc/262594751/SwiftKey-Emoji-Report
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