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TECHNOLOGYWednesday 3 January 2018
Will we get a sad poop emoji? Well, there’s a process
By BARBARA ORTUTAY This undated file image provided by Google shows the emojis Southeast India. mal emoji, including the
AP Technology Writer And then there’s the dump- woman in the hijab, the
NEW YORK (AP) — We have the company proposed that highlight the diversity of women’s ling. sandwich and the fortune
a smiling pile of poop. What AN EMOJI TAKES SHAPE cookie. Emojination has
about one that’s sad? careers. Back in August 2015, jour- worked with companies
There’s loaf of bread and nalist and author Jennifer like China’s Baidu, GE and
a croissant. But where’s the Associated Press 8. Lee was texting with her the Finnish government to
sliced bagel? friend Yiying Lu, the graphic help them submit emoji
How can our emotional emoji short story contests has to be approved by Uni- designer behind the iconic proposals.
vocabulary be complete “fail whale” illustration that WHAT MAKES THE CUT
without a teddy bear, a and books written in emo- code. The nonprofit group, used to pop up when Twit- But when they proposed
lobster, a petri dish or a ter’s network was down. It the frowning poop, they
tooth? ji — someone translated mostly made up of people dawned on Lee that there met with some resistance.
These are the kind of ques- was no dumpling emoji. “Will we have a CRYING
tions that trigger heated “Moby Dick” into “Emoji from large tech companies “There are so many weird PILE OF POO next? PILE OF
debates and verbal bomb Japanese food emoji,” POO WITH TONGUE STICK-
tossing — or at least memos Dick.” In 2015, Oxford Dic- like Apple, Google and she said, but she didn’t un- ING OUT? PILE OF POO
with bursts of capital letters derstand how there could WITH QUESTION MARKS FOR
— among members of the tionaries declared the Facebook, translates emoji be no dumpling. After all, EYES? PILE OF POO WITH
group burdened with de- dumplings are almost uni- KARAOKE MIC? Will we
ciding which new emojis “face with tears of joy” into one standard, so that a versal. Think about it — have to encode a neutral
make it onto our phones ravioli, empanada, pierogi, FACELESS PILE OF POO?
and computer screens emoji its word of the year. person in France, for exam- potsticker — all dumplings. As an ordinary user, I don’t
each year. The process took almost want this kind of crap on
And now more people are New York’s Museum of ple, can send an emoji or a two years, including re- my phone,” wrote Michael
getting in on the act. search, many meetings Everson, a linguist, typog-
The Unicode Consortium Modern art has added the text message to a person and a written, illustrated rapher, in a memo to the
is tasked with setting the proposal that reads a bit Unicode Technical Com-
global standard for the original emoji set to its per- in the U.S. and it will look like an academic paper, mittee.
icons. It’s a heady respon- complete with research on Another member, typogra-
sibility and it can take years manent collection. Apple’s the same, no matter what dumpling history and pop- pher Andrew West, wasn’t
from inspiration — Hey, why ularity. happy with a proposal for
isn’t there a dumpling? pricey iPhone X lets you brand of phone or operat- But thanks largely to her ef- a sliced bagel emoji.
— to a new symbol being forts, the dumpling emoji “Why are we prioritizing ba-
added to our phones. send animojis, animated ing system they use. was added to the Unicode gel over other bread prod-
That’s because deciding Standard this year. And as ucts?” he wrote. Clearly he
whether a googly-eyed emojis that mimic your fa- From the proposals to the part of her dumpling emoji is not a New Yorker.
turd should express a wider lobbying, Lee decided to Got an idea for an emoji
range of emotions is not cial expressions and speak design, a bevy of rules gov- join the Unicode Consor- and are willing to fight for
the frivolous undertaking it tium. it? It’s not too late to submit
might appear to be. Picking in your voice. ern emojis. To submit a pro- It was an eye-opener. one for the class of 2019.
the newest additions to our When she showed up at As for 2018, stay tuned.
roster of cartoonish glyphs, HOW DID WE GET HERE? posal to Unicode, you must her first quarterly meeting We’ll know in a few months
from deciding on their ap- of the Unicode Emoji Sub- which ones made the cut.
pearance to negotiating These tiny pictographs be- follow a strict format, in writ- committee, she expected And while there’s a desire
rules that allow vampires a big auditorium. Instead, to be funny and quirky, the
but bar Robert Pattinson’s came a part of our online ing, that includes your emo- it was just a conference diversity of emojis is a real
or Dracula’s likeness, actu- room. Most people there, issue.
ally has consequences for language with the ascent ji’s expected usage level, she said, were “older, white Amy Butcher, whose 2015
modern communication. male engineers,” from the essay prompted Google
Not since the printing press of cellphones, getting whether it can be used as big tech companies. to propose emojis to rep-
has something changed The debates are as esoteric resent women as profes-
written language as much their start in Japan in 1999 an archetype, a metaphor as they are quirky. Should sionals— and not just brides
as emojis have, says Lauren “milk” be in a glass or a car- and polished nails — thinks
Collister, a scholarly com- — “emoji” combines the for a symbol (a pig face, for ton or a bottle? Pancake there’s more work to do.
munications librarian at the or pancakes? Many of the The Ohio Wesleyan Univer-
University of Pittsburgh. Japanese words for “pic- example, can mean more emoji decision-makers are sity professor would like to
“Emoji is one way lan- engineers or have linguis- see interracial couples and
guage is growing,” she ture,” or “e’’ (pronounced than the face of a pig and tic backgrounds, she said, human in a wheelchair to
says. “When it stops grow- but very few are designers, represent a disabled per-
ing and adapting, that’s “eh”), and “letters,” or represent gluttony). which can mean limitations son, rather than the wheel-
when a language dies.” on how they think about chair icon one might see
Growing and adapting “moji” (moh-jee). At first, There are many reasons for the images. on a bathroom door.
doesn’t seem like an issue As part of their efforts to “These tiny, insignificant im-
for emojis. The additions for there were just 176: simplis- exclusion, too. Emojis can’t diversify emojis, Lee and ages begin to create an
2017 included gender-neu- Lu founded Emojination, everyday narrative, and
tral characters, a breast- tic, highly pixelated icons be overly specific, logos or a group promoting “emo- it’s deeply problematic
feeding woman and a ji by the people, for the that one might consistently
woman in a hijab. such as a heart, a soccer brands, specific people (liv- people.” While it all started find their identity or demo-
For better or worse, the ex- with a dumpling, the group graphic lacking, or pigeon-
panding vocabulary has ball and a rocking horse. ing or dead) or deities. A also helped other food, holed, or altogether ab-
given us an emoji movie, clothing, science and ani- sent,” she said.q
Today there are more than swastika wouldn’t be ap-
a thousand. Because none proved either.
are taken away, their num- Each year, a new version
ber only keeps growing. of the Unicode Standard
“Long after you and I are is released. This year we
dust in the wind there will got Unicode 10.0, which
be a red wine emoji,” said adds 8,518 characters, for
Mark Davis, the co-founder a total of 136,690. It added
and president of Unicode the bitcoin symbol, a set of
Consortium who also works 285 Hentaigana characters
at Google. used in Japan and sup-
Anyone can propose an port for languages such as
emoji. But for it to make it to Masaram Gondi, used to
phones and computers, it write Gondi in Central and
