145: Face With Tears of Joy (live with Keith Houston and friends)

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