Tbh it is actually the "gun" emoji and was changed to a water pistol years ago (after some mass shooting iirc). But knowing why he's doing it now makes me very uneasy.
this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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Rare, and I mean extremely rare musk W. Changing them to water pistols was fucking stupid and has never and will never do anything to change gun violence in America
I would argue it's two wrongs don't make a right.
An emoji is defined as "a small digital image or icon used to express an idea, emotion, etc."
So the message, "See you later (gun)" might be taken as a threat. Where the message, "See you later (water pistol)" might indicate a fun activity.
So an emoji on one platform should convey a similar message on another platform. We wouldn't be happy if words changed, so we shouldn't be happy when other symbols (emoji) change.
We can look at the "dancer" emoji, which historically displayed a dancing man, a dancing woman, or a gender neutral dancer. The emoji standard has since added specific rules for showing the correct gender, so there is no/less confusion.
Apple was wrong to change the emoji from a "gun" to a "water pistol". Other platforms were wrong to follow, although it did clarify and make the emoji less confusing. Twitter is now also wrong to change it back.
Arguably the best solution is to rename the current "gun" emoji to "water pistol" and to introduce a new emoji for "gun".
no, the correct solution would be to add a new emoji that is for water gun as a large reason for unicode's existence is to never change the meaning of existing symbols, 🔫 has always been the pistol emoji.
I'd be fine with that too.
I also did some digging.
Per the "Name Stability" policy you're right that 1F52B will always have the name "Pistol". That name was set in Unicode 6.0. However in Unicode 9.0 the aliases/annotations of "handgun, revolver" were added. These seem to be aliases, but not formal aliases since those have specific rules, so it's not clear to me if they can be changed. There is also an identity policy, but how it might apply in this specific case is unclear.
I bring this up since other Emoji have similar aliases that are unclear. For example the "old key" emoji mentions "encryption", the "dagger knife" emoji mentions "rated for violence" and "hate", and the "lips* emoji mentions "rated for sex".
As such it isn't clear on identity. So is "water pistol" a valid interpretation of "pistol"? I still think not, but I think it's a reasonable argument, even if that wasn't the original intention.
I mean, it used to be an actual gun. Then platforms changed it to a water gun because I guess that does something.
Yeah, he actually kind of fixed this one...
Yeah apple changed it and it's been a mess for years.
I don't actually care that it's a gun, I just want it to mean the same thing on all platforms.
(Parkland school shooting was in 2018)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_emoji#Controversy_and_glyph_changes
Google never should have changed from the blunderbuss, or the blob emojis for that matter.
Well, if there's one thing that's clear from all this, it's that Microsoft and Google at least used to have some style.
I had to look up what a blunderbuss was and just learned it was a real thing. I'd only ever seen them used in cartoons. It just looks cartoonish.
It looks like instead of BLAM, it goes honk.
It's got a built-in loudener.
That is FASCINATING. Thanks for finding that!
Kind of bummed at the lack of variety. :(
Apple and Xitter should keep what they currently have. Microsoft and Google should switch back to their 2013 versions because they were awesome. Facebook should also switch back to its 2013 emoji, but in that case because the revolver was the previously most common one and its the basic bitch of social media. Samsung should switch to an emoji of either that improvised gun the guy who shot Shinzo Abe used, or some ridiculous anime weapon.
🫅🔫
Eh, as others say that emoji has a bit of a history. That said, I very much expect he'll remove all the "DEI emojis" (aka literally any shade who isn't white or classic yellow)
Just yellow is fine, it was fine, it was a single icon that was still representative of all IMO
I feel the same way. It should be a skin tone that nobody on earth actually has. Equally exclusionary across the board equals inclusion automatically and then you don't have to worry about forgetting anyone.
I explicitly choose yellow when it tries to get me to pick one because why the fuck should my emoji convey race when it doesn't need to?
We’re all simpsons yellow.
well, except for abu maybe.
Please come back to this comment in a few years to let me know if my prediction is correct and he's removed all the pride flags
Yeah. Years. Not days.
…good point :P
I'm sure he'll change it back once someone uses it to threaten his ego.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day