There has long been debate over the official names or meanings of certain emojis on iOS and Android devices and Tuesday night, Elon Musk got involved.
It started when the SpaceX and Tesla CEO tweeted that he "just realized there is a jazz hands emoji" and added the emoji at the end. That prompted Jeremy Burge, chief emoji officer at Emojipedia, to tweet back a correction. He informed Musk that that emoji is actually a hugging emoji, which is what it says on the Emojipedia site as well.
Literally, if you type “jazz hands”, iOS shows this emoji 🤗
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 7, 2018
Musk responded that on iOS, when a user types "jazz hands" the emoji appears in the predictive spot in iMessage.
But the emoji also appears when a user types the word "hug" with predictive touch.
"IOS has an emoji autosuggest feature which prompts users with different emoji choices based on what they are typing," Burge told Newsweek.
"These suggestions don't necessarily correspond with the emoji names," Burge added. This might be the reason the "hugging face" emoji appears when iOS users type "hug" or "jazz hands"
Additionally, the emoji appears differently on iOS and Samsung devices than it does on other devices. On iOS and Samsung, the hands of the emoji face outward, it also looks like this on Twitter. But on other devices or platforms, like Google devices or on Facebook, the hands face inward like a hug.
The emoji is actually called the "hugging face" on Emojipedia, the same name the emoji is encoded as, said Burge. The description says "A face displayed with an open hands gesture, offering a hug." That open hands gesture is actually it's own emoji as well that was introduced in 2010, five years prior to the hugging face edition of the emoji.
Burge said maybe there should be a second emoji specifically for jazz hands so that the hugging emoji could be adjusted to appear more like a hug. "It's clear that both uses seem popular, and I'm glad Elon has found the right emoji for him when searching for jazz hands!"
