Let’s play something. Imagine a TV. A normal TV, I don’t give you more indications, think, for example, of the TV you have at home. Surely I am not too wrong if I say that it is probably a large, flat and slightly thin TV. It will depend on what each one has at home, but surely most of us have thought of something similar to this.
This is a current TV. It’s not Samsung’s QD-OLED or Sony’s latest screen, it’s a normal TV. It is the type of television that, to a greater or lesser extent, lives in the collective imagination of the user. So if so, the question is:why does the tv emoji keep showing tube tv 📺? Let’s talk about this.
Updated emojis, but not much
Today there are 3,633 emojis and there are more and more. The new emojis are introduced with the new versions of the Unicode Standard and the last one to arrive, which was Emoji 14.0, added 112 new emojis. Normally, when new emojis are added, they add completely new skin tones and icons, but they also usually update the ones that are wrong for some reason.
Surely you remember the one that was mounted with Google, Apple and the hamburger emoji. Basically, the Apple emoji showed bread, tomato, cheese, meat, lettuce, and bread. Google, for its part, showed bread, lettuce, tomato, meat, cheese and bread. doWho puts the cheese under the meat? It was updated and fixed.
I think we need to have a discussion about how Google’s burger emoji is placing the cheese underneath the burger, while Apple puts it on top pic.twitter.com/PgXmCkY3Yc
— Thomas Baekdal (@baekdal) October 28, 2017
The same thing happened with the beer emoji, which in the Google version had foam falling from the edge when the liquid barely reached the middle of the container. And let’s not talk about paella. The thing is that, beyond the fact that each emoji looks different on each operating system, it is clear that they can be updated to adapt to the times.
Image: Emojipedia.
The clearest example we have on the phone. When Softbank released the first emojis in 1997, the phone was a cell phone with its antenna, its alphanumeric keyboard, etc.. Today, that same emoji is an all-screen phone and is represented as such in all operating systems. Each one with its aesthetic, yes, but true to the phones we have today.
With TV, however, it does not happen. With few exceptions, such as Facebook Messenger, Softbank and, to a lesser extent, OpenMoji, all operating systems display the TV emoji as a TV worthy of ‘Tell me how it happened’.
The TV emoji was approved as part of Unicode 6.0 in 2010 and added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015. In 2010 we already had flat TVs (and even 3D, may he rest in peace), and we know this because in 2010 we were already celebrating Xataka Awards and all the candidates for best television were not only flat, but a preview of the design of current televisions.
The thing is, while other emojis have evolved, improved, or adapted, not the one on tv. And it’s funny, because in recent years the world of television has advanced significantly. Its “emojiana” representation, however, has stagnated on tube TVs. And maybe it makes sense.
Well, we changed it and that’s it… or maybe not
And wouldn’t it be an easy fan how to change it and that’s it? Not that much. The body in charge of approving the Unicode Standard is the Unicode Consortium, made up of large companies in the sector such as Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix or Salesforce. You have the complete list on their website.
This consortium makes public requests for proposals to find out which emojis should be implemented in the standard. The subcommittee regularly reviews new emoji proposals, and based on the following criteria (summarized, full ones are here), they are selected or not.
- Will the image work at the small size emoji are commonly used at?
- Does the emoji add something more to what can be said using an emoji or can the idea be expressed using existing emoji?
- Is there substantial evidence that a large number of people are likely to use this new emoji?
It’s a long, tedious process and with a not inconsiderable filter. In other words, the process of approving an emoji, which at first glance is little more than an icon on the mobile screen, can take up to two years. But the most interesting thing is that if we look at the criteria, surely the current TV emoji is simply enough.
It is true that it is outdated and that the current generations surely do not feel identified with the TVs shown in the emojis, but it fulfills its objective: It’s easy to identify a TV with that emoji. Is it an old TV? Yes, but it’s a TV. If I use it in a conversation, the other person will know that I am talking about a TV.
Now let’s think about putting a current TV as an emoji: a huge screen and a small support. At first glance it could be a TV, but also a monitor, an AiO computer or even a tablet. In fact, the tablet emoji does not exist and I would dare to say that it is precisely for this reason, because it would not be easy to distinguish it from a mobile or a laptop.
Could it be done? It could be done, of course, but it is not strictly necessary. The key to an emoji is that with just a glance you can know what we are talking about. Same as with the landline ☎️. How many landlines are still like this? Few, but if you see the emoji you know it’s a landline. The same thing happens with television. Is it a current TV? No, but we know it’s a TV. Tube, but a TV.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism