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Exclusive: Google releases 53 gender fluid emoji
[As emojis] become more inclusive, each becomes less universal. Jennifer Daniel, designer at Google, thinks about this deep irony at the heart of visual language all the time. She traces it back to the age-old problem with the male bathroom symbol. "That person could be man, woman, anyone," she says. "But they had to add a little detail, that dress, and suddenly that person symbol doesn't mean person anymore; it means man. And that culture means a man-centered culture."
While Daniel can't fix our bathroom signage, as the director of Android emojis, she can fix another problem: The lack of gender-neutral symbols in texting. She can give us the zombies, merpeople, children, weightlifters that are neither male nor female. "We're not calling this the non-binary character, the third gender, or an asexual emoji–and not gender neutral. Gender neutral is what you call pants," says Daniel. "But you can create something that feels more inclusive."
Google is launching 53 updated, gender ambiguous emoji as part of a beta release for Pixel smartphones this week (they'll come to all Android Q phones later this year). Whether Google calls them "non-binary" or not, they have been designed to live between the existing male and female emoji and recognize gender as a spectrum. Given that Google collaborates with many of its rivals on emoji, it's likely that Apple and others will release their takes on genderless emoji later this year.
Daniel sits on the Unicode consortium–the organization that sets core emoji standards, including signifiers like gender and other details, that designers at Apple, Google, and other companies then follow to create their emoji. Last year, she pointed out that there were 64 emoji that, according to Unicode's standards, were never meant to signify gender. In fact, 11 don't have a Unicode-defined signifier for male or female at all–like baby, kiss, fencing person, and snowboarder. As for the remaining 53, they could be male, female, or neither.
Yet Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and, yes, Google, have often assigned genders with their designs for these emoji. It's why every construction worker across major operating systems is, by default, is a man. Unicode's standards dictated a construction "person," but tech companies decided to design them as construction men (and add women as a secondary option).
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(Score: -1, Troll) by ekerin on Saturday May 11 2019, @04:13PM (5 children)
Buzzy - Your rough handling of a disagreement explains the comment section :( I was wondering why nothing was done over all this time.
(Score: 5, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday May 11 2019, @08:41PM (4 children)
You reckon I should have to stop participating in the community or censor myself on story-related matters because I do lots of work for the site? Not gonna happen. I don't have a problem in the world keeping site matters on a mostly professional footing but I did not magically become some higher form of life that should be held to a higher standard in all things just because I took on some work and responsibilities none of the rest of you were willing to.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Sunday May 12 2019, @02:20PM (1 child)
Actually, this brings to the fore the problem people have on this site with the difference between submissions and comments.
Submissions have to be factual, unbiased etc (I know, I'm repeating myself again...) Submissions are not intended to be used to further one's personal views or opinions. They set the topic for discussion by usually introducing some recent significant change or event in one of the topics that we cover.
The comments are where any community member can state personal opinions and views. You can say whatever you wish but you are expected to be able to verbally defend your views and perhaps even to persuade others to change their own. However, if you are unable to defend them then you can expect to be moderated appropriately - not by the staff but by fellow community members.
All of the staff have their own views and opinions and can express them in the comments. The staff try extremely hard not to let their personal views and opinions affect their work on this site. We have various checks and balances in place to ensure that this is the case.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 13 2019, @12:21PM
Clarification: These primarily take the form of pretty much none of us holding terribly similar points of view on anything except how the site should be run in general and being able to call "bullshit" on each other without getting butthurt.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 12 2019, @05:41PM (1 child)
Any work you do here is mostly obviated by your behavior in the comments section.
The green site has an interesting story relating to some reasons this kind of behavior damages discussions and communities, and why this otherwise decent site is not growing by leaps and bounds. IOW - why people like me rarely comment and will not create an account or financially support the site as currently constituted.
https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/05/12/027227/software-executive-decries-toxic-certainty-syndrome#comments [slashdot.org]
I don't expect you to understand or agree, but perhaps others can prevail and this site might have a chance at a future. Some people are just not worth dealing with.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 13 2019, @12:34PM
You get that you're the one exhibiting "toxic certainty"* here, don't you? You're so sure of your own views that you can't stand that I disagree and refuse to apologize for doing so.
Oh, and a quick FYI: We don't grow explosively because: A) We don't advertise. B) We don't do SEO. C) Very few people (relatively) actively desire hearing and debating views that oppose their own nowadays. D) We don't have any reason to want huge growth since financial profit is not our primary motive.
* What a whiny, bullshit term.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.