💬 The Wrap
As Weird Al put it this week: "I know there are a lot of horrible things going on in the world right now, but can we all just stop and take a moment to appreciate the fact that they’re finally coming out with an accordion emoji??"
If you want to jump straight to the 117 new emojis approved this week: here they are.
Quick recap: on Wednesday January 29, the Unicode Consortium posted emoji charts and data files for this year's emoji update, as well as a blog post to announce that Emoji 13.0 list is now considered final. Charts and data files include all sorts of useful information for vendors: keywords, suggested sort-order, categories, and images from various sources.
Emojipedia has for years now also produced a set of sample images, which we use to show how we think the emojis should or could look when they hit various platforms.
Why do we even do this? Well, Unicode charts have improved, but many of the sample images in earlier years were barely more than clip-art, and we wanted people to have a feel for what the emojis could actually look like. Pictures tell the story much better than words, but even better than picture is a video: where you can sit for two minutes and see all the emoji updates coming to phones this year.
On Twitter? You can browse our thread of all 117 emoji additions here.
The biggest reaction online has been for three new emojis in particular: Smiling Face With Tear, Transgender Flag, and Pinched Fingers. The latter has already seen tweets about and from AOC, Salt Bae, and its inevitable alternative use. For more on the latter interpretation, check out Emojipedia's new NSFW "After Dark" account.
Lastly, if you're commuting or want to hear a little more about some of the new emojis, I spoke with Emojipedia's Senior Emoji Reviewer Keith Broni about the whole new set on the latest Emoji Wrap podcast.
Now on with the news 🗞
💭 Interesting
📰 New emoji announced for 2020 - including gender-neutral Santa and pinched fingers
Lots of articles around the web about the new emojis. The gender neutral Mx Claus seems to get a mention in most press, often alongside the man with veil emoji.
A previous headline on this article called the new smiling face with tear emoji the "everything's fine" emoji, which I quite liked.
📜 Emoji We Lost
One thing that writing about a few emojis does is it produces a surprising amount of research, links and history to convey relatively straightforward ideas. Often writers will get facts wrong because of the inherent complexity of how emojis are approved and implemented, and how that has changed over time. Kudos to Paddy Johnson for such a thorough job in this article, covering 'lost' emojis over the years.
💁🏻♂️ Me on TNW Answers
Basically an AMA, but on The Next Web. I answered questions about a chef's kiss, man breastfeeding emoji, pride flags, and what you get for your $21,000 if you become a voting Unicode member.
🤪 The History of Emoji Chain Texts
Those over the top, emoji-filled chain messages and...well, where did they start? It's so funny as you rarely see these hit social networks, as they seem to live in a semi-ironic world of messaging, often just between two people.
🗣 Pinched Fingers Emoji's Creator Explains Its Meaning
It's probably just because I see a lot of this style of article, but I always get a bit 😴 with the narrative for a lot of emoji stories being "person x was in a place with person y and realized there was no emoji for z, so they talked about it, and proposed it, and it was accepted".
Personally, I think it's more interesting what the tech companies do with an emoji when approved, or funny and interesting uses once it is released. Or legal implications (if any), cultural differences, all good stuff. Anyway, lots of other people seem to like this type of article, so here it is.
👥 Shady Characters: emoji overview
A very well researched, 10-part series which would be a great resource for anyone trying to get up to speed on the emoji story of the past two decades. This is the last part of the series.
🤔 The past, present and future of the emoji, according to Google’s Jennifer Daniel
I have a lot of time for Jennifer Daniel, who heads up much of the emoji work at Google and has been putting in the work on the Emoji Subcommittee to better direct emoji priorities in future years. It's also refreshing that she manages to communicate effectively, without the usual corporate lines sneaking in which can be tricky to do when working at a large company.
💩 Actress reveals what it's like playing poo emoji character onstage
Emojiland The Musical is back in New York City, extended through until March 2020 now. I went to the updated show last month and really enjoyed it. I think most readers of this newsletter would too.
🔥 Twitter DMs now have emoji reactions
Any platform without emoji reactions to individual messages feels restrictive now. This is good to have.
🐍 Why Elizabeth Warren's Feeds Are Flooded With Snake Emoji
The snake emoji has become the go-to bullying emoji to harass people by posting it in bulk. Seems more prevalent among women. Instagram has filters for this sort of thing now.
🎙 Podcasts
🌯 Emoji Wrap: Everything's Fine with Keith Broni
I talk to Keith Broni about every new emoji. Okay, we skim over a few.
⏰ Clockwise #331: Ambulatory Meat Sack
No emoji chat here, but I do debate whether I should be TikTok'in