Sometimes we don’t understand what our friends are trying to tell us. Their texts seem a bit confusing. They’ll write things like “I got promoted” and then they’ll use a sad-looking smiley face. Are they incapable of using the colorful emotion renderings? Are we unable to decipher emotions and how they are used? No, it’s just a case of “Lost in Translation”, emoji edition.

Because there is a wide variety of smartphones and tablets out there, there is also a different set of emoji for each platform. Even though they look in one way on one or two platforms, it doesn’t mean that the animated sentient will look the same on all of them.

So if you don’t want your emoji to get lost in translation, then you should make sure that your friends are using the same brand of device as you. And if you’re texting a stranger, then be weary of the smiley face you send, it might prove to be a bit ambiguous.

Let’s take for example the smiling emoji.  On an Apple device, the figure looks like it’s in some sort of distress, that or the person sending it just did an evil thing and he or she is trying to indirectly send that message without actually admitting.

In simpler terms, it’s the face somebody makes when passing gas and at the same time trying to look cool. The general consensus is that the emoji is far from depicting a smile.

Now the same emoji is completely different on Google. It shows a person smiling broadly with happiness reflecting from the eyes. It’s the kind of smile that could be described as “warm”.

Microsoft’s attempt at the smile looks like something drawn by a kid with good crayons but poor skills. Samsung’s is probably the best depiction of an honest smile. That means that Samsung users are probably believing that they are sending a cute smile to Apple users and the latter believe that the first are trying to hide a dead body somewhere.

LG, HTC, Facebook, and Emoji One are rather similar in the sense that the eyes are made to look happy, and the grin is honest enough to represent a kind, friendly smile. Twitter’s same emoji, on the other hand, is more similar to the Apple “guilty” smile than something that might accompany “I went on a great date” and mean that the person had fun, not sold the kidneys of the other person.

So next time when you text somebody, remember that emoji get lost in translation, and you can easily send the wrong message with the cute, colorful smiley faces.

Image source: Wikimedia