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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, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @05:32PM (6 children)
This is just another one of the Leftist Shit-tests.
It is beyond retarded, but don't worry in a week they will come up with a better one. And they will keep doing this until they poke so hard the backlash will make Commies look like saints.
Stupid leftists, you do not have to make everyone hate you so much that they will kill you in the streets like its 1955 in Indonesia. All you have to do is get the normal, unpolitical people indifferent to your fate, which you are well on the way of doing, and the small but militant subset of the population will do the rest. If you want to see trannies and feminist ham-beasts beaten and lynched in the streets in our lifetime, then do continue. The soy-cucks will also get the helicopter treatment.
(Score: 1) by NPC-131072 on Saturday May 11 2019, @05:50PM
Imagine being so offended by emojis that you label it "beyond retarded" before threatening to lynch people in the street.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday May 11 2019, @06:18PM
Ooooh, you just reminded me, the emoji we *really* need is a symbol for male masturbation! The SA forums had their little :fap: (and :schlick: too, they beat Unicode to inclusivity by years). Would be absolutely perfect for that kind of post, for at least two reasons.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @06:36PM (2 children)
Runaway you should log in to post such brave rhetoric.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Saturday May 11 2019, @07:55PM (1 child)
Accusing Runaway of posting as an AC?!? Harsh. Don't destroy someone's rep like that.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @08:52PM
I would imagine that being a tough independent thinking manly man he wouldn't be fazed by it.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday May 12 2019, @10:26AM
Only in the Panhandle. That's only in the Panhandle you can get away with that statement, folks.