# Strange behaviour of emoticons in character count
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/strange-behaviour-of-emoticons-in-character-count/19049
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [19 Agosto, 2014 13:45 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/strange-behaviour-of-emoticons-in-character-count/19049 "2014-08-19T13:45:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@TechnoBear](https://meta.discourse.org/u/TechnoBear)
#### Post date: [19 Agosto, 2014 13:45 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/strange-behaviour-of-emoticons-in-character-count/19049/1 "2014-08-19T13:45:22Z")
Continuing the discussion from [Notifications not clearing properly unless visited from menu](https://meta.discourse.org/t/notifications-not-clearing-properly-unless-visited-from-menu/19041/6):
> [@TechnoBear](#):
>
> Yes, it does. 😄
I was replying to a question of @sam’s, which really just required a “yes” or “no” answer, but of course, Discourse has a 20 character minimum requirement. Stuck for inspiration, I threw in a smilie and found that apparently counts for at least six characters, as you can see.
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [19 Agosto, 2014 13:47 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/strange-behaviour-of-emoticons-in-character-count/19049/2 "2014-08-19T13:47:07Z")
Edit: Please don’t fix this, as I like replying with:
🍓 🍰😋
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### Author:  [@downey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/downey)
#### Post date: [19 Agosto, 2014 14:14 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/strange-behaviour-of-emoticons-in-character-count/19049/3 "2014-08-19T14:14:56Z")
> [@TechnoBear](#):
>
> I threw in a smilie and found that apparently counts for at least six characters, as you can see.
I don’t think this is a bug. 😄 has 7 characters: `:smile:`
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### Author:  [@TechnoBear](https://meta.discourse.org/u/TechnoBear)
#### Post date: [19 Agosto, 2014 14:18 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/strange-behaviour-of-emoticons-in-character-count/19049/4 "2014-08-19T14:18:38Z")
🌜
**Edit:** Thanks - that seems to be the answer. Unexpected, but not a bug.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [20 Agosto, 2014 00:57 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/strange-behaviour-of-emoticons-in-character-count/19049/5 "2014-08-20T00:57:58Z")
🎂
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [25 Agosto, 2014 19:17 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/strange-behaviour-of-emoticons-in-character-count/19049/6 "2014-08-25T19:17:57Z")
Okay, so this seems to apply to uploaded images too. Shouldn’t these be excluded from the character count?
If I were to paste an image in my response, it would exceed the 20 characters needed to post a reply/topic, so I could post an image and leave it at that… Maybe that was intended…
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [12 Octubre, 2014 21:59 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/strange-behaviour-of-emoticons-in-character-count/19049/7 "2014-10-12T21:59:02Z")