Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday May 11 2019, @08:24PM (3 children)

    Okay, asshole.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Troll=1, Funny=2, Underrated=1, Total=4
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @09:50PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @09:50PM (#842491)

    With pictograms, please.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 12 2019, @12:32AM (1 child)

      Nobody appreciates my humor. Sigh.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 12 2019, @01:00PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 12 2019, @01:00PM (#842647)

        You humor failed due to not being in modern image form
        please resubmit your 💩