Emotes

Emotes are digital representations of expressions, actions, or reactions used in online communication and interactive media. They can be textual, graphical, or animated, and are often platform-specific. The term encompasses emoticons—the text-based sequences that convey emotion with ASCII characters such as :-) or ;-)—as well as broader forms of emotes, including Unicode emoji, in-game gestures, and image-based emotes provided by platforms.

Historically, emoticons emerged in early online communities as a simple way to convey tone in plain text. The practice grew with the adoption of graphical emoji in Unicode during the 2010s, enabling standardized pictographs across devices. In gaming and streaming contexts, emotes evolved to include in-game gestures and platform-managed image sets that allow players and viewers to express reactions in more visual ways.

Types of emotes include:

- Text-based emoticons: ASCII sequences that express facial expressions or moods, such as :-) for a smile or :-P for sticking out a tongue. These rely on character arrangement rather than graphical assets and vary by culture and language.

- Unicode emoji: color pictographs encoded in the Unicode standard, enabling widespread use across operating systems and apps. Emojis cover facial expressions, objects, symbols, and more, often accompanied by skin tone and gender modifiers.

- In-game emotes: built-in actions or gestures that a character can perform, such as waving, dancing, or cheering, typically activated by specific commands or hotkeys.

- Platform emotes: custom images or animated assets provided by platforms or communities, notably on streaming services where channels offer subscriber-only or globally available emotes.

Usage and considerations: emotes help convey tone, personality, and group affiliation, but can be misinterpreted across cultures or platforms. Some emotes are subject to licensing, moderation, and community guidelines to manage appropriateness and copyright.