Google Chat emoticon Easter egg

In this video, Videocrab demonstrates a very odd typographical Easter-egg embedded in Google Chat. I have no idea if this is real or shooped, but it's cute nevertheless.

2012-04-06_21-10-36_872 (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

• [Bersl]

  I still want a Unicode Trollface.

  • [bardfinn]

    There’s a Unicode Japanese ogre face and Japanese goblin : 1f479 and 1f47a.

    1f5ff is a moai (Easter island head). Perhaps other suggestions could be forthcoming.

• [Matt Blank]

  The chat emoticons have always done this for me. Not just on the :D one either. They’re usually a lot faster turning though.

  • [lightforce]

    Same here. It’s done that for as long as I’ve been using gChat, on both Firefox and Chrome. As for why it’s turning so slowly, my guess is either a Javascript bug or a low memory issue.

    • [Mike Norman]

      Mine turn slow all the time. You can actually choose your set of emoticons, too, iirc. I think mine change into little drawings of smiley faces.

  • [vertigo25]

    Same here. I’m wondering if we’re missing something ironic or funny about this post…

• [James Maniscalco]

  Loving the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack.

• [Adam Christie]

  Yep always done that for me too, good use of music though :)

• [Mike Harris]

  No disrespect intended, but this feature has been around for me since Google Talk was introduced.

• [helen sotiriadis]

  same for me — they’ve always turned. smilies, hearts, etc.

• [BarBarSeven]

  Typography does not love you.

• [brainflakes]

  Woah, did I just go back in time to the year 2005?

• [Noctilucent Studios]

  What is this? I don’t even…. mine always do this as well. Are we missing something here?

• [Franklin]

  slow news day huh? either that or I just got trolled

• [Bryan R. Sarrasin]

  April….no, it’s not still the first. so …..huh?

• [Cauto]

  oh c’mon Mr Doctorow 

• [daemonsquire]

  I thought maybe the videographer slowed the footage down to suit the ominous music, but the speed of the flashing icon seems to counter that.  So, I guess the music signifies the mounting tension of waiting for a compromised CPU to perform supposedly simple tasks–the rotating D, analogous to the feeling one has of wanting to twist one’s own head off when a web page seems to take forever to finish loading!

  Incidentally, after watching this, I fired off a few Gchat emoticons to my wife, beside me here.  Both :D and :) turn into the same face on her laptop, but only :) converts on her Android phone (to a different Android-esque smiley face), while the :D stays the same.  Meanwhile, a :( becomes a frown on the laptop but not the phone, while a o_O remains unchanged on the laptop, yet turns to a perplexed Androidicon on the phone.

  That’s as far as the experiment got.

  • [void_ptr]

     The :P turns and then sticks the tongue out, don’t forget.

• [Shawn Suther]

  the “slow turn” happens when you “pop out” the goog-chat window.
  I wouldn’t call it an easter egg. a rendering bug, certainly.

• [jeraliey]

  For more fun, type in V.v.V

• [teapot]

  This just in: Doctorow is not employing emoticons & gmail chat on a regular enough basis.

  Later: Firefox teaches us about robots!
  http://www.reposter.net/images/content/about-robots.jpg

• [Moonpie Nobot]

  Mine goes fast either way 

• [Walter Stabosz]

  I find this gchat emoticon the most surprising ~@~

  • [millie fink]

    Ha! Thanks.

    Gotta be careful tho who ya type that to…

  • [Tim Drage]

    It’s an outrage that there is no standard universal unicode poop symbol, it would improve the standard of discourse on the internets immensely.

    Emoji has a cute happy poop at least.

• [GTMoogle]

  ~=[,,_,,]:3

• [danjadave]

  Not shooped. You can tell from the pixels.

• [Johnny Lloyd Rollins]

  ((˚J˚))  O YOKO!

• [Tore Sinding Bekkedal]

  Cory Doctorow, keep up at the back there!

  Wow. I’ve always wanted to say that.