22nd June 2015, 5:26 AM
It's not that ALL smilies are now emoji. Emoji refers to a very specific set that's part of the unicode standard. They're smilies that have been upjumped above their station to proper "letters" in their own right.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)