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While most face emojis tend to face directly forward, there are several other emojis that seem to face to the left (or sometimes to the right). Animals and vehicles are a prime example.
And if you’ve ever pondered just why that might be, I can confirm that you’ve come to the right place, because in this article, we’re going to explain all the reasons why this might be.
But first we’ll talk about how this can often be an inconvenience and even deceitful, and before we end, we’ll talk about what, if anything, you can do about it.
Please feel free to have a scroll through. Here goes!
Why Emojis Facing Left Can Sometimes Be Problematic
The whole idea behind emojis is to communicate far more quickly, by pressing fewer buttons than you would if you were typing everything, so the temptation is certainly there to replace whole sentences with emojis, and you can bet your bottom dollar that many people have tried to do so, and often to great effect.
However, if you want to use emojis to express your intention or involvement in traveling from one place to another, then you may wish to use a vehicle emoji to express what method of travel you will take, or are taking.
So, typically you would first use an emoji to express where you’re traveling from, for example home, followed by a vehicle emoji, followed by your intended destination, such as the city.
But if your vehicle is facing left, then the message will appear as though the vehicle, facing left, is heading from the city to home, and not the other way around.
This will give many readers the wrong impression because so many languages, such as English, understand communication to be conveyed from left to right.
And this problem can cause even more confusion, because an emoji which faces left on one device, may actually be facing the other way on another device.
And one consequence may make the sender believe they have sent a message with one meaning about where they are traveling, only for the recipient of the message to have a completely different impression of the message. This only causes confusion and can be quite problematic indeed.
Possible Reasons Why Emojis Face Left
Reason One: Japanese Writing Tradition
Emojis were invented in Japan, where people write rather differently than they do with the English language.
Japanese convention requires that people write and read in columns of text rather than rows, and read and write these columns progressing from the right to left.
So, for the Japanese inventors of emojis, it would make more sense to them to have the emojis pointing to the left rather than to the right.
Reason Two: Vehicles Making Progress
In the west, we tend to symbolize progress as going from left to right, because this is how we progress through our sentences.
So emoji inventors wishing vehicles making progress, may feature them facing right, to show that they are on the move towards their destination.
Reason Three: To Symbolize Domestication
Domesticated animals such as family pets may be depicted as facing left to symbolize wishing to return to their home and to their beloved owner/master/family.
What You Can Do About This Issue
You will be pleased to hear that it is possible to rotate your emojis on Android and iOS devices, and we will provide you with instructions as to how.
However, it’s important to note at this point that the instructions we’re providing for you here are for the device’s main keyboard, and don’t necessarily apply to individual apps on those devices.
How To Rotate Emojis On An Android Device
You can rotate emojis on your Android device by downloading certain apps. These include Gboard, zFont, Textra, and Emoji Replacer app. (It’s beyond the scope of this article to provide instructions for rotating emojis on all of these apps.)
How To Rotate Emojis On An iOS Apple Device
On Apple devices you can mirror emojis using the preview.app on any mac. Here are the steps you would need to follow:
- Open the app
- Select your chosen image from the ones presented
- Open the markup toolbox
- Create a new text box and insert your emoji
- (You can type an emoji by going to Edit > Emoji & Symbols, or by using the touch bar if you have a MacBook Pro.)
- Then go to Tools, and select Flip Horizontal.
- Then you can save your rotated emoji, and use it as you please.
Final Thoughts
So, as have shown earlier, having emojis face the wrong way can be quite problematic and cause confusion.
However there does seem to be some reasoning about why they often face this way (usually left), having been invented by the Japanese who write and read in columns from right to left.
But the good news is that you can take action and solve this issue yourself with the aid of an appropriate app.
Thank you for reading!
