Users discuss confusion around emoji meanings in Discourse, particularly the lack of clear explanations for reactions like the hugging face 
Richie clarifies it’s a hug, referencing Emojipedia, while anon36555649 notes desktop hover reveals names. jidanni asks how mobile users can see explanations, suggesting long press should work — which Moin confirms, though questions its usefulness since emoji names (e.g., “eyes”) don’t convey context-dependent meanings. Others note cultural ambiguity — e.g., 
and 
— and that even definitions can be outdated or misleading Jagster. anon36555649 humorously claims only face-based icons are true emojis. jidanni laments not being able to edit reactions after learning their ‘true’ meaning, a limitation anon36555649 confirms: reactions freeze after a few minutes. JammyDodger concludes that since emoji meaning is context-driven, adding long-press labels isn’t worth the effort — users should consult emoji pickers or Emojipedia for clarity. The topic is closed as non-priority.
How are we supposed to find out what the emotion icon with the two hands underneath the face is supposed to mean?
I mean it looks like a pleasant icon, but without any words explaining it, for instance during a long press, we might end up expressing the wrong emotion!
It’s a hug:
Thank you very much. I would have never guessed!
Okay that’s great that the mouse will show it. Except I’m using a Android cell phone. How can I see the explanation with my cell phone? Thanks. Why can’t long press show it?
Longpress does show it. The text at the top is exactly the same as on desktop.
But I don’t think this is that helpful. What does it help you to know that 
is explained as eyes? This is rather the name than the meaning of the emoji. When someone reacts to your post with eyes, that could mean “I’ll take a look.” However, Emojipedia states:
Sometimes used to indicate ‘pervy eyes’ to indicate approval of an attractive photo posted online; or ‘shifty eyes’ to convey a deceitful act.
How do we know what the person who reacted really meant? It depends on the context. I don’t think showing the name in the UX would help to understand the meaning.
This can be a challenge to understand what someone means with an emoji, for instance one of the other ones they have here at meta is the “Chef Kiss” emoji, which I am not sure what that means does anyone know?
Would guess this for a compliment of a recipe or to compliment the picture of a meal someone has shared or something?
On my forum we had longer discuss how people are reading that: 
Well, it varies so much it is actually useless because of that.
And then we have very widely known example: 
It just doesn’t matter what hoovering or long presses gives. Definitions will be wrong and/or outdated, or culturally just wrong.
Emoji (y) had very special meaning until Facebook changed it to 
and one has dirtier imagination that joke is hilarious.
Point is… we should not try explain emojies ever and textforms are debatable
Emoji’s are based on emotional expression of someone’s face, if there is no face it is not an emoji. 
OK, I found that leaving the mouse on top of some showed some names. And I thought the “exploding head” one was wearing the same hat as the “chef” one.
Anyway, too bad that Discourse won’t let you change the emoji you picked, once, a few days later, you learn what it “really meant”!
“That reaction was created too long ago. It can no longer be modified or removed.”
This seems to be only for a few minutes someone can change their response to a post before it is frozen.
As the name of the emoji doesn’t convey the meaning of its use in different situations as it’s very context-dependent, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of merit in dedicating any time to making the long-press ‘show emoji name’ work on all mobile devices.
For those situations where you’re unsure, you can look up the emoji in the composer’s emoji picker for the name and/or use something like the Emojipedia site that @Richie linked further up to get much more info on what it is and what it’s commonly used for.
I’m going to close this topic off as it’s not something we’re looking to work towards.
