I think it&#x27;s far more than &quot;the size of the lookup table&quot; because that implies that each emoji has one purpose (like the Facebook 5 have one purpose).<p>Facebook&#x27;s five choices are clear and universal human emotions that leave very little room for subjectivity.<p>Emoji, on the other hand, are used as a famously arcane new language where each symbol has many potential uses, as a pictogram in conjunction with others, or as multiple uses per emoji, as viral &quot;inside&quot; jokes meaning completely different things than depicted (tree, fire, or pineapple are often used to mean a drug, but how do you know when a tree symbol means a drug and when it means a pine tree?) &quot;X_X face&quot; is often used to mean sexytimes, but the X_X emoji is also used to mean exasperation.<p>Sad, happy, angry, these are simple to work with.<p>But how do you classify Back-Button? What does a user think of a post when they rate it &quot;Alien-Face&quot;. When they use &quot;Skull&#x2F;Crossbone&quot; are they saying danger&#x2F;poison, or death, or Halloween, costumes, a movie?<p>I&#x27;m not sure you could ever get to an adequate level of programmatically understanding the intent behind emoji, but I think that it&#x27;s not too difficult with 5 universal emotions.