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posted by martyb on Saturday May 11 2019, @03:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the s/he dept.

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).

Related: 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
Microsoft Briefly Left Holding the Gun Emoji
Unicode Consortium Adding 230 New Emojis in Emoji 12.0


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday May 11 2019, @08:20PM (12 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday May 11 2019, @08:20PM (#842450) Journal

    You're being sarcastic, but if men *did* listen to the things I've been saying like "stop telling one another not to get help when you need it" or "for the love of fuck do not mutilate your baby's genitalia" or "racism is stupid, you have more in common with $OTHER_ETHNICITY than you do with a rich man of $YOUR_ETHNICITY and you should join up and fight," things would definitely take a turn for the better.

    Besides, how is our emoji-bating friend up there being stereotypically unmasculine? I can practically smell the BO and Axe spray from here...

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
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  • (Score: 1) by NPC-131072 on Sunday May 12 2019, @12:00AM (1 child)

    by NPC-131072 (7144) on Sunday May 12 2019, @12:00AM (#842523) Journal

    I can practically smell the BO and Axe spray from here...

    Nice hyperbole but be sure to check the pronouns next time!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 12 2019, @07:40AM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 12 2019, @07:40AM (#842607)

    I see. Now racism is man thing.

    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 12 2019, @11:34PM (8 children)

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday May 12 2019, @11:34PM (#842799) Journal

      In terms of who's making the laws and reinforcing de facto systemic racism? Absolutely. Sure, there's plenty of racist women out there too, and now we've even got a few *also* making laws, but the point still stands.

      I notice you didn't address any of the rest of that post. Probably because you can't.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 13 2019, @12:56PM (7 children)

        "systemic racism": No actual racism is present but $race is not coming out as well as $other_race and I need a term to make it sound evil.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday May 14 2019, @03:44AM (6 children)

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday May 14 2019, @03:44AM (#843265) Journal

          That's what you take from the term? If you really do not see how the current paradigm fails people along racial lines, you are blind beyond all redemption. I sincerely hope you reincarnate poor and black. After your stint "in Hell."

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 14 2019, @10:30AM (5 children)

            It doesn't. It doesn't exist to serve people so it can't fail them. If you want to know what's fucking them, it's their culture. Single parent homes are the closest thing there is to a guarantee of poverty for children raised in them and 80% or so of black children are raised in one.

            There are two primary reasons that's a near guarantee of failure in life. First, the parent has less in the way of assets to use to help the child financially as they start off in life. Second, poor people, for the most part, do not know how to get ahead in life and can not teach it to their children.

            The government can't fix either of those. It can't fix the money issue because money from the government is viewed and treated much, much differently than money from someone you love. It can't fix the education issue because you can't teach personal and fiscal responsibility, delayed gratification, and a good work ethic at school if the opposite is being taught at home. You damned sure can't teach them to anyone who subscribes to a party that views them as swear words.

            And it can't fix the fact that unqualified people, be it for school entry or for a job, are unqualified and have nothing to look forward to if handed opportunity on a silver platter except failure and shame. This has been proven time and again by progressive schools allowing people in because of their skin color who had not earned it only to see the majority of them fail and drop out.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday May 14 2019, @05:01PM (4 children)

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday May 14 2019, @05:01PM (#843478) Journal

              There is a racial component to poverty, is my point. Considering you vigorously claim Indian heritage, a quick look at any reservation ought to drive my point home. That it does not is one reason one of my nicknames for you is "Chief Shitting Bull." "Walking Eagle" is another one.

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 15 2019, @10:05AM (3 children)

                It doesn't matter if there is a "racial component" if race is not causal or even contributory.

                --
                My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 15 2019, @08:07PM (2 children)

                  by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday May 15 2019, @08:07PM (#843954) Journal

                  Except it...very much is...? Just because you don't or won't see how doesn't mean it's not so.

                  --
                  I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 15 2019, @10:45PM (1 child)

                    You and your like keep saying that but never proving it. You say that discrimination must be the cause if $race doesn't come out precisely equal to their percentage of the population. That is factually incorrect. You even know it is factually incorrect. Which is why the term "institutional racism" was created in the first place; so racism could be blamed even when absolutely zero evidence of it could be found.

                    --
                    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 15 2019, @11:32PM

                      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday May 15 2019, @11:32PM (#844019) Journal

                      Um, no, no I do not say that. Stop putting words in my mouth. You're arguing with a strawman, at best.

                      --
                      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...