Emoji vs. Emoticon — What's the Difference?

A digital icon used to express emotions or concepts.

Text-based symbols used to convey emotions in digital messages.

Symbols in texting that convey emotional cues.

A representation of a facial expression using keyboard characters.

A small digital image used to express an idea.

Created by users using characters available on a keyboard.

Emoji are often colorful and standardized.

Reflects creativity in textual form.

Used in digital communications to add flair or emotion.

Lacks the variety and color of emojis.

Emoji or Emojis ( i-MOH-jee; from Japanese 絵文字 [emodʑi] lit. 'picture character'; plural emoji or emojis) are pictograms, logograms, ideograms and smileys used in electronic messages and web pages. The emoji's primary function is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversation.

An emoticon (, ə-MOH-tə-kon, rarely pronounced ), short for "emotion icon", also known simply as an emote, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers, and letters—to express a person's feelings, mood or reaction, or as a time-saving method. Early emoticons were the precursors to modern emojis, which are ever-developing predominantly on iOS and Android devices.

A small digital image or icon used to express an idea or emotion

A representation of a facial expression such as a smile or frown, formed by various combinations of keyboard characters and used to convey the writer's feelings or intended tone

A standardized ideogrammatic icon, as of a face or a heart, used especially in electronic messages or on webpages.

A facial glyph, used especially in email, texts, and instant messages and sometimes typed sideways, that indicates an emotion or attitude, as [ :-) ] to indicate delight, humor, or irony or [ :'( ] to indicate sadness.

Such icons considered collectively.

A graphical representation of a particular emotion of the writer, used especially in SMS, email, or other electronic communication.

A digital graphic icon with a unique code point used to represent a concept, object, person, animal or place, originally used in Japanese text messaging but since adopted internationally in other contexts such as social media. Or, by extension, any non-standard emoji-like image inserted inline in text, i.e. an image emoticon.

A graphic made up of text characters to represent such emotion; a smiley.

An image or graphic icon used to represent such emotions; an emoji.

A representation of a facial expression (as a smile or frown) created by typing a sequence of characters in sending email;

Yes, emoticons can be used on any platform that supports text input, but their appearance may vary.

An emoji is a graphical icon used in digital communications to express emotions, activities, or concepts.

An emoticon is a textual representation of a facial expression, formed using characters from a standard keyboard.

New emoji are released periodically as part of Unicode updates.

No, there is no official standard for emoticons; they are created based on user creativity.

Yes, due to Unicode standardization, emoji appear consistently across different devices and platforms.

The Unicode Consortium reviews and approves new emoji based on proposals from the public and other stakeholders.

Emoji are colorful and standardized images, whereas emoticons are made from text and lack color.

Some prefer emoticons for their simplicity and retro appeal, or because they allow for more personalized expression.

No, emoji can also represent objects, symbols, and actions, not just emotional expressions.