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Emoji 12.0 brings us waffles, more diversity, suggestive "finger pinch" glyph
There's a push for more diversity with this new emoji release. We have emojis for deaf people in three genders (male, female, and genderless) and five skin tones, an ear with a hearing aid, people in motorized and unmotorized wheelchairs, prosthetic arms and legs, a guide dog and a service dog, and people with a probing cane. There are actually only 59 distinct new emoji types in this release, but everything that depicts a human comes in five skin tones and three genders, which pumps up the numbers. You can really see this with the "People holding hands" emoji, which is completely configurable for a total of 70 possible combinations.
The emoji that's causing the most buzz is "pinching hand." Emojipedia's example shows a thumb and pointer finger with a small distance between them, which could also be interpreted as a hand signal for "small." People are already coming up with, uh, "suggestive" uses for such a glyph, and if the actual implementations follow Emojipedia's design, the glyph could end up on the naughty list next to peach and eggplant.
Thank you, Emojesus. ✝
By the way, what happened to calling it Unicode 12.0? Maybe they'll call it that in June.
Unicode Consortium blog post. Also at Emojipedia and 9to5Mac.
Previously: 38 New Emojis to be Introduced in 2016
Unicode Considering 67 New Emoji for 2016
Unicode 9.0 Serves up Bacon Emoji, 71 others, and Six New Scripts
Unicode 10.0's New Emojis
Stink Over Frowning Poo Emoji at the Unicode Consortium
Related: Apple's New iPhone X will let You Control the Poo Emoji with Your Face
Google CEO Drops Everything to Fix Cheeseburger Emoji
Microsoft Briefly Left Holding the Gun Emoji
Battle of the Bagel Emoji
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Thursday February 07 2019, @07:26AM (10 children)
We now have three times as many useless pre-Sumerian iconographic glyphs as the ancient Egyptians had (about a thousand), and they're busy churning out more as fast as they can dream them up. In the meantime there's no Unicode codepoints for a large range of the historical glyphs because they're too busy masturbating over who can insert the silliest-looking finger symbol into Unicode without anyone noticing that it's all a joke. The Unicode Consortium should just rename itself the Emoji Consortium, and leave the proper character set work to a group that takes the work seriously.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07 2019, @07:41AM (4 children)
Perhaps I missed this. What is an "emoji"?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Thursday February 07 2019, @07:47AM
OP pretty much got it right - they're undefined ideographic symbols (hence "hieroglyphs" is someone accurate - but hieroglyphs at least had defined meanings,) freshly invented and smuggled into the unicode character set inappropriately while real languages are still lacking.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nuke on Thursday February 07 2019, @10:51AM (2 children)
I wonder if this question is really a way of asking WTF is this crap meant to be used for.
Even supposing I'm a black transgender in an un-motorsed wheelchair, with prosthetic arms and legs, a cane, a guide dog and a hearing aid, why TF and in what circumstances would I want or need to use an emoji for it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07 2019, @11:47AM
Wow <emoji:SuperUnluckyDude>
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 07 2019, @02:08PM
If there's not an emoji for you, then you're being marginalised.
By the ASCrIIarchy.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by SpockLogic on Thursday February 07 2019, @12:41PM
Ahhhh .... Will this replace the mushroom as the Trump penis emoji?
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday February 07 2019, @01:47PM (2 children)
Do you remember the early 90s, when this kind of shit was just called "clip art"?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Touché) by driverless on Thursday February 07 2019, @02:33PM (1 child)
Or Wingdings, and you could say ✈🗐🗐 and 🕱✡👍 and 💣✈ to your heart's content...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 07 2019, @02:57PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07 2019, @02:31PM
That's because the "politicians" have taken over at Unicode. They can use the new emojis to grandstand, while the poor researcher waiting for Linear C to get added has no visibility, and is probably a (soon to be) dead white patriarch anyway.