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That first paragraph really put me off the article to be honest. Why read an article on emoji by someone who doesn't know what emoji are?

At the same time, I do realise "emoji" is now often being used as a generic term that encompasses both true emoji (unicode-based) and general emoticon images.

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I've never heard emoticons referred to as emoji, mainly because people don't use emoticons anymore (unless they still post on forums). It seems like a deliberate editorial decision. I would prefer to preserve the distinction, however, for reasons GP stated.

I use emoticons when texting (because I'm a graybeard), but my phone translates them into emojis before sending. So I've just taken to calling them all emojis.

My beard might be even greyer because I still think of them as 'smileys' :)

It took me years to change the habit of calling them smileys!

Do you mean you use smileys like :) :( :P ?

Emotions were the little images you could place amongst text in MSN Messenger.

As far as I recall it was pretty common to call :-) etc emoticons back in the day. Like 1990s/early 2000s.

Emoticons were originally and predominately text based ¯\_(-_-)_/¯

The author does state the distinction between emoji and emoticons in the sixth paragraph.

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