💬 The Wrap
Heading into the end of January, I'm a little bit over winter, but heading off to Italy shortly for some 🏂 snowboarding and 🍕 pizza to liven it up. But first: emoji news.
Last week was the quarterly Unicode Technical Committee meeting held at Google in Mountain View this time around. As a "Supporting Member" of the Unicode Consortium, Emojipedia gets 0.5 of a vote, but so far it's yet to have been used.
Most decisions at Unicode are made by consensus. If there is no consensus, a vote could take place, but that may be an indication there is more to discuss instead.
Unicode has now authorised March 5 as the release date for Unicode 12.0. This is when the final emoji list for 2019 will be published (Emoji 12.0 / currently still in draft), alongside of course, all the other Unicode characters being added this year. In practice, most people are only just getting updates on their devices for the 2018 emoji list, which is now supported on all major platforms.
While I have you here - I want to give a special mention up the top to the Emojipedia Emojiology series. This is a deeper look at individual emojis and their various influences, and if you've ever been stumped by this emoji - 😳 - then I have just the article for you.
📰 News
📱 WhatsApp 2.19.7 Emoji Changelog
WhatsApp remains HUGE in Europe in particular, and its emoji set shown on Android has growing influence. Primarily, the set aims to match Apple's emojis closer than any other vendor: like if you gave someone Apple's set and said "like this, but better where you can".
This year was odd as WhatsApp released new emoji support in December 2018, then changed a bunch of designs this month in a separate release. See all the changes from both updates in this changelog from Keith Broni.
🦄 EmojiOne 4.5 Changelog
Out today, EmojiOne has changed a number of designs in their emoji set. Despite not having widespread use on most platforms, EmojiOne remains committed to their designs that can be licensed. Notably also the only vendor which now keeps the 🔫 Pistol as a weapon by default (though being a downloadable set, the company also provide a toy water gun as an alternative).
💭 Interesting
🧒 Children Are Using Emoji for Digital-Age Language Learning
The part I found most interesting was the potential that adults, responding in English (or their native language) to your children mashing the emoji keyboard, could aid their learning.
I talked about this on Tech News Weekly last week. Jump to about 35 minutes in.
💔 How We Apologize Now
Not about emoji per-se, but come for the observation of how the Notes app has become the defacto public apology; and stay for the graphic from Raphaelle Macaron.
🇨🇳 In China, the smiley face emoji means something else
Ignoring the headline for a moment - this gives a small insight into some of the WeChat specific emoticons that are used in the wildly popular app in China. These appear to have a variety of sources, and some would make for good standard additions to Unicode.
💬 The 2018 Emoji Report
"I initially resisted emoji. But the efficiency of the lightweight communication that occurs via emoji and emoji reactions can’t be denied. It also happens to be fun." - Michael Lopp
🍆 David Tennant is mortified as he discovers meaning behind aubergine emoji
(eggplant, for everyone else)
In the emojiverse, the eggplant's alternative meaning is one of the most prevalent, but that doesn't mean it is universal.
🎙 Podcasts
🔺 Triangulation 381 Chief Emoji Officer Jeremy Burge
One hour on the TWiT network show Triangulation, where Megan Morrone asks me all the things people often want to ask. And then some.
🤗 Lastly
That's it for this month! If you're new to the newsletter, I'm Jeremy Burge: the founder and Chief Emoji Officer at Emojipedia. This is a fairly informal email of things I find interesting each month, and I hope you agree.
You can follow me on Twitter at 👨🏻💻 @jeremyburge or this newsletter (and podcast of the same name) at 🌯 @EmojiWrap. For all the official news from Emojipedia itself (especially new emoji releases) the best option is 📙 @Emojipedia.
See you next month.
❄️ 🏔 ❄️ 🏂 ❄️ ☃️ ❄️