•  kinttach   ( @kinttach@lemm.ee ) 
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    2311 months ago

    It’s become a symbol that has meaning even if the physical object isn’t used or doesn’t exist any more.

    This ⏳ is a symbol that means “time passing” even though the object is rare and obsolete. This ⚽️ is a rare type of soccer ball/football, but it’s the most recognized symbol for the game. This 🚕 isn’t what taxis look like in most places — and many people have never used a taxi; they take Uber.

    • You know the hourglass was a good lead but then you went overboard.

      That football look isn’t all that rare, maybe in the US? Same for Uber, I have never taken one and they are definitely not the only “new taxi”. Again, maybe in the US this is more the case than anywhere else.

        • The basic shape of pentagons and hexagons is almost always the same, but the black-white color combo is pretty rare - the balls are usually white with colorful designs and use paited shapes other than the ‘basic’ petagons and hexagons.

          For example, take the soccer wikipedia page The image on the side shows a ball with a design that looks like the emoji well enough at a glance, but you’ll see it’s quite different. If you go on the wikipedia list page for FIFA World Cup balls you’ll see that the ‘Tango’ style lasted for 6 competitions while the ‘Telstar’ (the one in the emoji) lasted only 2. After 2000 the designs got really wild and nothing like the Telstar. And that’s just looking at FIFA World Cups, ignoring all other competitions and events, as well as balls you could buy at a store

          If you were to go look at the balls in a sports shop with some 5-6 models of soccer balls, sure, you’ll most likely find a ball that matches the Telstar aesthethic more or less closely, but there will be a lot of variation in the designs that are nothing like the Telstar, as opposed to balls for other sports which are much more standardized.

      •  kinttach   ( @kinttach@lemm.ee ) 
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        211 months ago

        I guess I was stretching it. In my defense I have never seen the black-and-white ball in play at kids’ or professional matches. And there aren’t yellow taxis in my city. Yes — in the US.

    • The ⏳ is still the most intuitive way to represent “time passing” with a static image. One could maybe use a ⏱️ with the needle blurred to indicate movement… but the beauty of ⏳ is that it needs nothing more, just like ⌛ clearly indicates “the allotted time has passed”.