News: 0177782491

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Docomo Emoji Set To Be Officially Discontinued (emojipedia.org)

(Monday May 26, 2025 @04:30PM (msmash) from the end-of-an-era dept.)


An anonymous reader shares a report:

> [Last] week, it was announced that Docomo's emoji designs will [1]no longer appear on any of the Japanese mobile network's devices . This marks the end of an emoji era that first began in 1999, even though the set hasn't been updated since 2013.

>

> [...] Unlike these earlier systems, Docomo's emoji set in 1999 was explicitly tied to mobile internet use and would become the template for emoji standardization in the 2000s and 2010s, alongside emoji design sets implemented by Softbank and KDDI on their own versions of i-mode (J-Sky and EZweb, respectively). Docomo's set would receive several updates between 1999 and 2013, introducing color support and additional concepts to the keyboard. But now, as per this week's announcement, it will finally be discontinued. Spanning 26 years, it's undeniable that Docomo's emoji set played a foundational role in emoji history, even if its last incarnation remained unchanged for almost 12 of those 26 years.



[1] https://blog.emojipedia.org/docomo-emoji-set-to-be-officially-discontinued/



Emojis are a bug (Score:1)

by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 )

Why exactly does every device in the world need to carry around instructions for rendering a turd?

Re: (Score:2)

by cfalcon ( 779563 )

Pretty shitty world, sometimes you need to communicate that graphically.

Re: Emojis are a bug (Score:3, Insightful)

by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 )

Yes...because nothing spells human progress like using advanced technology to communicate in pre-literate pictograms.

Re: Emojis are a bug (Score:2)

by PPH ( 736903 )

I don't know about progress, but take a look at the way the public communicated in Fahrenheit 451. Then look at the YouTube/TikTok generation. And then be afraid. Very afraid.

Re: Emojis are a bug (Score:2)

by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 )

The kids these days were always stupid. I remember having a distinctly low opinion of my pre tiktok classmates' intellectual capacity in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Looking a few of them up now that we're all pushing 40, I see business owners, physicians, academics, engineers, bankers, solid white- and blue-collar types.

I conclude that people have always naturally aged out of much of their operationally-relevant stupidity at some point after high school. The internets just lets you see more stupid than you

A bit of history of emoji and emoticons (Score:2)

by shanen ( 462549 )

I think you were going for funny but the FP was basically a troll comment seeking attention or something.

Anyway, a bit of history seems to be in order, even though real history only starts after all the actors are dead and I'm pretty sure I once exchanged email with the guy who started the smiley thing. Not sure about him, but I wasn't dead yet the last time I checked.

Originally the idea was to add a bit of softening to flat text communication. Often difficult to be clear about emotions in writing, and it g

Re: (Score:2)

by know-nothing cunt ( 6546228 )

It's really more of a coiled pile. The real problem with the poop emoji is that there's only one, smiling and happy. We need to be able to express other emotions with poo. Rage at the very least.

Re: Emojis are a bug (Score:2)

by jddj ( 1085169 )

I'm afraid Disney has Winnie the Pooh all locked up.

Re: (Score:2)

by packrat0x ( 798359 )

It's not a turd, it's chocolate ice-cream without the cone. ;-)

Re: (Score:2)

by sound+vision ( 884283 )

Probably the same reason why the characters "t", "u", "r", and "d" are included, and the sequence is included in the spell checker.

Re: (Score:1)

by Anonymous Coward

> sending an emoji of a baby chicken to evoke that mood

What mood, pray tell, does the image of a baby chicken evoke? The desire for Chick-fil-A?

Re: (Score:2)

by Comboman ( 895500 )

> We had the same shit with URLs, instead of being happy with plain ASCII domain names we had to find a workaround for unicode, not understanding the serious security implications.

URLs?!? Why can't you just be happy with plain IP addresses?

Re: (Score:2)

by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 )

Now now, Grandpa, quiet down and lay back in your EZ chair - it's obviously way past time for your nap!

Not slashdot worthy. (Score:2)

by Gravis Zero ( 934156 )

Per TFA:

> Docomo emojis were still in use?

> Surprisingly, yes, though only on specific devices within Japan.

This literally only impacts the remaining users in Japan.

Re: (Score:2)

by sound+vision ( 884283 )

See that flag next to the article title? It's the flag of Japan. It denotes that there is a whole category of articles on this site related to Japan. I'd be willing to bet there are even people reading this website, who are in Japan.

Maybe you're not Slashdot-worthy.

Re: (Score:2)

by Gravis Zero ( 934156 )

> See that flag next to the article title?

Actually, I didn't because of ublock.

> It denotes that there is a whole category of articles on this site related to Japan.

Actually, the subdomain specifies the category while the icon is a filter.

> I'd be willing to bet there are even people reading this website, who are in Japan.

I'm sure the lack of unicode support is a big draw. ;)

> Maybe you're not Slashdot-worthy.

I wouldn't be the first.

In matters of principle, stand like a rock;
in matters of taste, swim with the current.
-- Thomas Jefferson