Emoji Archetypes 🦋

[jcb]

Here is the emoji of a butterfly:
Here it is as an image, because your browser probably doesn't show it the same as mine: https://em-content.zobj.net/source/micr ... _1f98b.png

In my browser, it is orange, because the archetypical butterfly that the artist referenced is a monarch butterfly ( https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... In_May.jpg ), which is the most common kind of butterfly in North America. The fact that the emoji resembles a North American animal is a consequence of how the most important tech companies are based in America, and mostly staffed by Americans. For non North Americans, this representation of a butterfly probably seems arbitrary or even imaginary, because their archetypical butterfly is not a monarch butterfly.

According to https://emojipedia.org/butterfly#designs , companies based in Asia, like Samsung and Sony, which use their own emoji representations in their products, use a blue butterfly instead of an orange one.

So:
(1) What is the archetypical butterfly for non North Americans?
(2) What other emojis have archetypes that are specific to America?

Here's some I can think of:
- eagle (Shows a bald eagle, which has a white head. Other eagle species don't have a white head. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tai ... e_crop.jpg )
- bear (Shows a brown bear, as opposed to, say, an asian black bear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_bla ... w_zoo).JPG )
- saw (A japanese carpentry saw looks different. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/512 ... _QL80_.jpg )

Another thought: Sometimes animals differ between places, but because the difference is slight or internal, most people are unaware of it. For example, there are two species of beavers in the world, Castor canadensis and Castor fiber, the former (mostly) in North America, and the latter in Europe. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver#/m ... _range.png ) They can't even interbreed, because their number of chromosomes don't match! But you were probably unaware of this, because they look identical to a layman.

[zompist]

You can browse different manufacturers' emojis on emojipedia.com.

Since emoji were invented in Japan, I'm a bit surprised that there's not more variation or use of Japanese norms. E.g. the Samsung bear is a beige color, but all the eagles have white heads.

[Torco]

oddly enough, if you google mariposa you get mone of those red monarch thingies than if you google butterfly. for myself, the other stereotypical butterfly i think of is a metallic blue one, or maybe a tiny red one that you see down here.

[jcb]

Since emoji were invented in Japan, I'm a bit surprised that there's not more variation or use of Japanese norms. E.g. the Samsung bear is a beige color, but all the eagles have white heads.

Well, there are some emojis of japan-specific things, like:
- map of japan (No other country has an emoji of a map of their country.)
- mt fuji (No other specific mountain, even Mt Everest, has an emoji.)
- japanese post office
- (japanese) goblin
- (japanese) ogre
- japanese symbol for beginner (Often used to mark the car of a beginner driver.)

There are emojis for a fairy () and a Tolkienesque elf (), but no dwarf. (As an aside, I think it's fair to say that by now, influenced by two decades of LoTR media, the Tolkienesque idea of an "elf" has become the normal/default elf, supplanting the older idea of an elf that looks something like a Keebler elf ( https://www.prosportstickers.com/wp-con ... _73112.jpg ). Tolkien would be pleased.)

oddly enough, if you google mariposa you get mone of those red monarch thingies than if you google butterfly. for myself, the other stereotypical butterfly i think of is a metallic blue one, or maybe a tiny red one that you see down here.

I still find monarchs if I search "mariposa", but that's probably because I'm being geolocated to the US by IP and browser history.

[Raphael]

For the record, the butterfly in the title of this topic looks blue in my browser.

[WeepingElf]

For the record, the butterfly in the title of this topic looks blue in my browser.

Yes - it is blue both on my laptop (Linux) and my smartphone (Samsung).

[linguistcat]

Very oddly, my windows computer shows the monarch in the title, but the blue one in the post itself.

[Qwynegold]

For me (Sweden/Finland) the archetypal butterfly is either something we call a lemon butterfly, which is completely a pale yellow color, or the nettle buttefly. Some other things I noticed looking at my phone now:

• The snowman (on my Android) is made of two balls, which is Japanese style. Here snowmen are typically made with three balls forming the body and head.
• There's a dragon and a dragon head. They are both of the Asian type, but they are green which is the typical dragon color in the west.
• The pancakes are a stack of American pancakes.
• The waffle is a square Belgian waffle. Here they typically consist of six heart-shaped parts.
• There are stacks of dollars, yens, euros and pounds, but no money that's currency inspecific.
• There's a notebook with a black and white patterened cover, which I've seen in American TV shows.
• There are four different American mail boxes. I don't quite understand the difference between them.
• I can't make sense of the order the flags come in. Austria comes between American Samoa and Australia, which suggests this is based on the countries' English names. But others make no sense. Why does Andorra and UAE (?) come before Afghanistan?

[Torco]

arufabetto jun tabun

google translate says the UAE is arabushuchōkokurenpō. apparently the part that isn't arab is made out of "chieftain national coalition" or something like that.

my can also shows red in title and blue in post.

Code: Select all

🦋

red

blue
🦋 red

neat!

oddly enough, if you google mariposa you get mone of those red monarch thingies than if you google butterfly. for myself, the other stereotypical butterfly i think of is a metallic blue one, or maybe a tiny red one that you see down here.

I still find monarchs if I search "mariposa", but that's probably because I'm being geolocated to the US by IP and browser history.

sorry, my typo. i meant that i get more, not that i get none... wait... if one is 1, and 2 is more, and none is 0: is mone for minus one?

[jcb]

There are four different American mail boxes. I don't quite understand the difference between them.

Here are the four:

In America, the flag (the red thing on the side, which is made of metal, not cloth) on the mailbox is raised by the owner to signify to the mail carrier that there is outgoing mail inside the box. Otherwise, the mail carrier might skip opening the box and miss the outgoing mail if there is no mail to deliver to it that day.

The door being open or closed is just another feature that somebody decided was important enough to add, I guess.

[Raphael]

Here are the four:

In America, the flag (the red thing on the side, which is made of metal, not cloth) on the mailbox is raised by the owner to signify to the mail carrier that there is outgoing mail inside the box. Otherwise, the mail carrier might skip opening the box and miss the outgoing mail if there is no mail to deliver to it that day.

The door being open or closed is just another feature that somebody decided was important enough to add, I guess.

That doesn't seem to explain the difference between the leftmost one and the second one from the left, though.

[Ketsuban]

That doesn't seem to explain the difference between the leftmost one and the second one from the left, though.

You may have an emoji font that makes the differences between all four hard to see. The two dimensions, as said, are the position of the flag (lowered or raised) and the position of the door (closed or open). The open door/raised flag state has mail in it, because the point of raising the flag is to signal to the postman that there's outgoing mail to be collected; the open door/lowered flag state has no mail.

	Closed	Open
Lowered	📪	📭
Raised	📫	📬

[quinterbeck]

I see two different blue butterflies in different places (browsing chrome on samsung android), going by emojipedia: samsung and twitter

In the titles: samsung

arufabetto jun tabun

(normal text) twitter

google translate says the UAE is arabushuchōkokurenpō. apparently the part that isn't arab is made out of "chieftain national coalition" or something like that.

(italic) twitter

my can also shows red in title and blue in post.

(underlined) twitter

Code: Select all

🦋

red

(code block) samsung

blue

(size=200) twitter

🦋 red

(table) samsung

[quinterbeck]

In America, the flag (the red thing on the side, which is made of metal, not cloth) on the mailbox is raised by the owner to signify to the mail carrier that there is outgoing mail inside the box. Otherwise, the mail carrier might skip opening the box and miss the outgoing mail if there is no mail to deliver to it that day.

Wait, they collect your mail directly from your house??

[Raphael]

Thank you, Ketsuban!

In America, the flag (the red thing on the side, which is made of metal, not cloth) on the mailbox is raised by the owner to signify to the mail carrier that there is outgoing mail inside the box. Otherwise, the mail carrier might skip opening the box and miss the outgoing mail if there is no mail to deliver to it that day.

Wait, they collect your mail directly from your house??

Yes, they do that there. This reminds me of a piece I once read by, I think, a Turkish migrant to the USA, who had reported to people in their old home about this, and was met with complete disbelief.

[Raholeun]

Similarly, I was stunned that glasware is picked up from the roadside in Germany (in NRW at least).

[Raphael]

Similarly, I was stunned that glasware is picked up from the roadside in Germany (in NRW at least).

Not everywhere, unfortunately. Not where I live.

[jcb]

In America, the flag (the red thing on the side, which is made of metal, not cloth) on the mailbox is raised by the owner to signify to the mail carrier that there is outgoing mail inside the box. Otherwise, the mail carrier might skip opening the box and miss the outgoing mail if there is no mail to deliver to it that day.

Wait, they collect your mail directly from your house??

If you have a mailbox, yes.

My childhood home in a small town had a mailbox until circa 2000, IIRC. Then, everybody's mailbox was removed and everybody was given a PO box in the local post office instead. (Later, circa 2015, the hours of the local post office were reduced from 8 per day to 4 per day, just to give you an idea of how the service has deteriorated (or become more efficient, depending on your point of view) over time.) So, mailboxes, and thus this kind of mail collection, are less common nowadays than they were 30 years ago.

[Qwynegold]

arufabetto jun tabun

Hmm, that's something I hadn't considered. However, it still doesn't add up.

[Qwynegold]

There are four different American mail boxes. I don't quite understand the difference between them.

Here are the four:

In America, the flag (the red thing on the side, which is made of metal, not cloth) on the mailbox is raised by the owner to signify to the mail carrier that there is outgoing mail inside the box. Otherwise, the mail carrier might skip opening the box and miss the outgoing mail if there is no mail to deliver to it that day.

The door being open or closed is just another feature that somebody decided was important enough to add, I guess.

Huh, I knew there was something about the position of that flag, but I didn't know you could send mail from your own mail box. That's really interesting.