Man, I legitimately have missed the blobs. I know the current emojis have more flexibility in terms of gender and skin tone, but for me I loved the ambiguity/vagueness of the blob - i.e. you could...
Man, I legitimately have missed the blobs. I know the current emojis have more flexibility in terms of gender and skin tone, but for me I loved the ambiguity/vagueness of the blob - i.e. you could insert anyone into those blob characters and it would work. They are adorable to boot too.
So I have a lot of thoughts and words on the whole gender/skintone of emojis that I've never really got the chance to talk about, and I'm interested in talking about because I'm open to being challenged on this.
A lot of words about emojis and identity
I'm a brown man and I have never found myself reaching or even wanting to use coloured skin tones/gender. I know that's my own opinion and others will disagree for good reason, but for me I have the following issues with it:
Anyone can use various colour pigments. I've seen people use the wrong colour pigment - most likely by complete accident though.
I don't really see the need to use it amongst friends and family who have seen what I look like. It's pretty obvious I'm a brown man, I'd rather not bring that identity and all the baggage it contains over into a conversation when I just want to do a 👍
Using coloured pigments online for me feels like I'm about to open myself up to abuse. Whether that is realistic or not is another question. But the usage of it makes me feel like a risk in itself.
With the gender, for example the shrug emoji by default is a woman: 🤷♀️ (at least it is for me on iOS, it's the first entry). I could choose a man instead, but what would that gain in the conversation, outside of me stating I'm a man shrugging. I also think it would say a lot that I went out of my way to choose the man version of the emoji, as if I have something against women.
I know this is me really overthinking what is supposed to be a very basic picture-esque way of communicating body language, but by adding gender and skin colour, suddenly I have to think about how I would want to present my identity online and if there are negative consequences of that. Whereas the genderless yellow blob with it's heavy emphasis on abstraction just allows me to get straight to the point and allows me to convey body language.
I will say that adding stuff like wheelchair emojis or emojis showing accessibility is very much a plus. I would also recognise stuff like seeing emojis of women as mechanics/doctors/fireman/etc could contribute to a plus benefit with women/younger girls seeing themselves in their role through a emoji, which may start towards a brighter future.
Overall, I don't know - I see the benefit, but actually going out of my way to use the non-default emojis really makes me question myself and how I want others to see myself where the defaults allow me to just convey body language/tone/emotion without baggage, and the yellow blobs help reduce a lot of that mental anxiety around digital identity. What do others think?
(I am a white man.) I'm happy for others to use the skin tones and genders for emoji, and I think it's probably valuable for inclusiveness that they exist (it would be a cop-out not to acknowledge...
What do others think?
(I am a white man.)
I'm happy for others to use the skin tones and genders for emoji, and I think it's probably valuable for inclusiveness that they exist (it would be a cop-out not to acknowledge that the default "yellow" is clearly a cartoonish stand-in for white skin). But the idea of using them myself makes me intensely uncomfortable. Essentially, I have no idea what the subtext of saying "white-skinned thumbs-up" versus "yellow-skinned thumbs-up" (versus "black-skinned thumbs-up", where the intended audience either does or does not know my race) is; but it's obvious there is subtext, and the idea of saying something potentially charged without any idea what is viscerally unnerving to me.
Yes! This is absolutely spot on! I think it was made to give folks who aren't necessarily as privileged (e.g. ethnic minority, woman, LGBT) a bit more visibility by allowing them to do e.g. 👍🏽 or...
Yes! This is absolutely spot on! I think it was made to give folks who aren't necessarily as privileged (e.g. ethnic minority, woman, LGBT) a bit more visibility by allowing them to do e.g. 👍🏽 or 👩🏽🔬 but if you are amongst the privileged folks (e.g. white man) it becomes very awkward to do 👍🏻 or 🧑🏻🔬 because it almost borders on white/male pride which is... oof
I see your point and generally agree. But I think it's important to recognize that for the most part choosing a gender or skin-tone is optional. It's not necessary when you're just trying to...
I see your point and generally agree. But I think it's important to recognize that for the most part choosing a gender or skin-tone is optional. It's not necessary when you're just trying to convey body language. But if the gender or skin tone is important to what you're trying to communicate it's nice to have that choice. I don't like the blobs because they purposefully remove that choice.
The idea of noto emoji seems to be that emoji should be general symbols and things like gender or red vs white wine are too specific. I disagree with that, but I think we should consciously create generic emoji alongside specific emoji. A black and white wine emoji lets you be generic about going out for wine. Whereas language is likely to attach subtle meanings behind red or white wine emoji.
In the end I think language is better when it's expressive and limiting the specificity or generality of symbols doesn't seem helpful. We can have blobs, genderless people, gendered people, and anything else. Humans we're great with language and I think we can handle it.
I absolutely agree. I think as well when I wrote my post, I was having a bit of an identity implosion. For context, my parents are Pakistani and therefore I am Pakistani. But I've been bought up...
I absolutely agree. I think as well when I wrote my post, I was having a bit of an identity implosion.
For context, my parents are Pakistani and therefore I am Pakistani. But I've been bought up in the UK in a very western society amongst very, very pale white nerds & geeks because I identified the nerdiness and geekiness in myself. I have never really been that religious or culturally linked to my Pakistani heritage. There is a bit of a slur amongst the South East asian community of calling someone a "coconut" - brown on the outside, white on the inside; but I think that really does apply to me as I've never really "connected" to the Pakistani side of me at all.
So for me, these skin tones makes me go "what should I put myself down as? I don't want to be ashamed of my skin colour, but I don't necessarily want people to identify me, ask questions about my background, and then wrongly assume I have that deep connection with my South East asian roots. But I don't also want to appear like I'm looking down on others for that lack of link nor do I want to feel ashamed of that lack of connection as it is what it is." and now I've got all this baggage and questions around my identity, which was sparked by "👍🏽".
But I do think there is value in being able to express more. One of the most limiting things is not seeing accessibility emojis.
This is a neat idea that I'm surprised hasn't caught on already (feels a bit wingdings), but holy cow can I barely tell that's a dancer in the example they offer. I think many of these need...
This is a neat idea that I'm surprised hasn't caught on already (feels a bit wingdings), but holy cow can I barely tell that's a dancer in the example they offer. I think many of these need simplifying further. How you'd represent something as complex as a dance in probably < 16x16 without the hint of colour is a challenge that's beyond me.
I at least think these can be great for UIs. Like it or not, but emojis in UIs is a thing now, and using this font specifically in those cases (or both web and mobile) can look pretty good, I'd...
I at least think these can be great for UIs. Like it or not, but emojis in UIs is a thing now, and using this font specifically in those cases (or both web and mobile) can look pretty good, I'd imagine. These probably blow up to larger sizes more elegantly than the default emojis.
I really dislike how they got rid of a subset of gendered emoji and tried to push it off as a good thing. I think it limits the expressions you can convey. I suppose the same is true for skin...
I really dislike how they got rid of a subset of gendered emoji and tried to push it off as a good thing. I think it limits the expressions you can convey.
I suppose the same is true for skin tones, but given that it can be brought back with styling it’s not quite as egregious.
It’s a shame because I really like these otherwise.
I use symbola, which includes a reasonable subset of emoji glyphs, for this purpose. My thoughts: I don't particularly mind the addition of pictograms into text streams. Obviously handwriting has...
I use symbola, which includes a reasonable subset of emoji glyphs, for this purpose. My thoughts:
I don't particularly mind the addition of pictograms into text streams. Obviously handwriting has included them since the beginning. However, I am irrationally, vehemently irritated by those pictograms being colored. It breaks the flow of the text and rarely gels well with the color scheme in which the text is being rendered.
The symbola emoji are mostly borderline illegible at regular text sizes. This rarely matters to me (in regular usage, emoji almost exclusively just reinforce subtext), but definitely affects usability. Also, symbola doesn't cover every emoji in wide use, so you still get occasional tofu. If noto monochrome is more legible, I would switch to it once it's packaged in Debian Stable.
As packaged in Debian, Firefox and Thunderbird helpfully embed their own copies of a color emoji font. I exploited dpkg diversions to hack around this: dpkg-divert --rename --divert /tmp/ff-emoji.ttf --add /usr/lib/firefox-esr/fonts/TwemojiMozilla.ttf (this moves the files into /tmp, where they'll be deleted on reboot; and it's durable and reapplied when the Firefox and Thunderbird packages are updated).
To be honest, probably. The "beauty" of emojis is that they're universal because they're injected at the most fundamental level of text rendering - the very format for encoding text. This forces...
Is that too much to ask for?
To be honest, probably. The "beauty" of emojis is that they're universal because they're injected at the most fundamental level of text rendering - the very format for encoding text. This forces all vendors to properly supply glyphs for them.
There's lots of services that offer custom emojis, but trying to federate them between themselves is an effort that only end in either the same system (e.g the major players form a strict consortium that determines the inclusion of new universal emojis that de facto are part of the unicode spec as generic rich text would just look broken without implementing them) as we have right now or utter failure.
Emojis are a form of content, and now you have the content moderation problem. Who hosts the emoji gylphs? What custom emojis are appropriate? How are namespace collisions handled?
Man, I legitimately have missed the blobs. I know the current emojis have more flexibility in terms of gender and skin tone, but for me I loved the ambiguity/vagueness of the blob - i.e. you could insert anyone into those blob characters and it would work. They are adorable to boot too.
So I have a lot of thoughts and words on the whole gender/skintone of emojis that I've never really got the chance to talk about, and I'm interested in talking about because I'm open to being challenged on this.
A lot of words about emojis and identity
I'm a brown man and I have never found myself reaching or even wanting to use coloured skin tones/gender. I know that's my own opinion and others will disagree for good reason, but for me I have the following issues with it:I know this is me really overthinking what is supposed to be a very basic picture-esque way of communicating body language, but by adding gender and skin colour, suddenly I have to think about how I would want to present my identity online and if there are negative consequences of that. Whereas the genderless yellow blob with it's heavy emphasis on abstraction just allows me to get straight to the point and allows me to convey body language.
I will say that adding stuff like wheelchair emojis or emojis showing accessibility is very much a plus. I would also recognise stuff like seeing emojis of women as mechanics/doctors/fireman/etc could contribute to a plus benefit with women/younger girls seeing themselves in their role through a emoji, which may start towards a brighter future.
Overall, I don't know - I see the benefit, but actually going out of my way to use the non-default emojis really makes me question myself and how I want others to see myself where the defaults allow me to just convey body language/tone/emotion without baggage, and the yellow blobs help reduce a lot of that mental anxiety around digital identity. What do others think?
(I am a white man.)
I'm happy for others to use the skin tones and genders for emoji, and I think it's probably valuable for inclusiveness that they exist (it would be a cop-out not to acknowledge that the default "yellow" is clearly a cartoonish stand-in for white skin). But the idea of using them myself makes me intensely uncomfortable. Essentially, I have no idea what the subtext of saying "white-skinned thumbs-up" versus "yellow-skinned thumbs-up" (versus "black-skinned thumbs-up", where the intended audience either does or does not know my race) is; but it's obvious there is subtext, and the idea of saying something potentially charged without any idea what is viscerally unnerving to me.
Yes! This is absolutely spot on! I think it was made to give folks who aren't necessarily as privileged (e.g. ethnic minority, woman, LGBT) a bit more visibility by allowing them to do e.g. 👍🏽 or 👩🏽🔬 but if you are amongst the privileged folks (e.g. white man) it becomes very awkward to do 👍🏻 or 🧑🏻🔬 because it almost borders on white/male pride which is... oof
I see your point and generally agree. But I think it's important to recognize that for the most part choosing a gender or skin-tone is optional. It's not necessary when you're just trying to convey body language. But if the gender or skin tone is important to what you're trying to communicate it's nice to have that choice. I don't like the blobs because they purposefully remove that choice.
The idea of noto emoji seems to be that emoji should be general symbols and things like gender or red vs white wine are too specific. I disagree with that, but I think we should consciously create generic emoji alongside specific emoji. A black and white wine emoji lets you be generic about going out for wine. Whereas language is likely to attach subtle meanings behind red or white wine emoji.
In the end I think language is better when it's expressive and limiting the specificity or generality of symbols doesn't seem helpful. We can have blobs, genderless people, gendered people, and anything else. Humans we're great with language and I think we can handle it.
I absolutely agree. I think as well when I wrote my post, I was having a bit of an identity implosion.
For context, my parents are Pakistani and therefore I am Pakistani. But I've been bought up in the UK in a very western society amongst very, very pale white nerds & geeks because I identified the nerdiness and geekiness in myself. I have never really been that religious or culturally linked to my Pakistani heritage. There is a bit of a slur amongst the South East asian community of calling someone a "coconut" - brown on the outside, white on the inside; but I think that really does apply to me as I've never really "connected" to the Pakistani side of me at all.
So for me, these skin tones makes me go "what should I put myself down as? I don't want to be ashamed of my skin colour, but I don't necessarily want people to identify me, ask questions about my background, and then wrongly assume I have that deep connection with my South East asian roots. But I don't also want to appear like I'm looking down on others for that lack of link nor do I want to feel ashamed of that lack of connection as it is what it is." and now I've got all this baggage and questions around my identity, which was sparked by "👍🏽".
But I do think there is value in being able to express more. One of the most limiting things is not seeing accessibility emojis.
You're only the second other person I know to appreciate the blobs. Although there are fediverse instances using them!
I always use white woman emojis simply because they're easier to find (and since I use them often, they're now the first suggestion that appears :P).
This is a neat idea that I'm surprised hasn't caught on already (feels a bit wingdings), but holy cow can I barely tell that's a dancer in the example they offer. I think many of these need simplifying further. How you'd represent something as complex as a dance in probably < 16x16 without the hint of colour is a challenge that's beyond me.
I at least think these can be great for UIs. Like it or not, but emojis in UIs is a thing now, and using this font specifically in those cases (or both web and mobile) can look pretty good, I'd imagine. These probably blow up to larger sizes more elegantly than the default emojis.
I really dislike how they got rid of a subset of gendered emoji and tried to push it off as a good thing. I think it limits the expressions you can convey.
I suppose the same is true for skin tones, but given that it can be brought back with styling it’s not quite as egregious.
It’s a shame because I really like these otherwise.
I use symbola, which includes a reasonable subset of emoji glyphs, for this purpose. My thoughts:
helpfullyembed their own copies of a color emoji font. I exploited dpkg diversions to hack around this:dpkg-divert --rename --divert /tmp/ff-emoji.ttf --add /usr/lib/firefox-esr/fonts/TwemojiMozilla.ttf(this moves the files into/tmp, where they'll be deleted on reboot; and it's durable and reapplied when the Firefox and Thunderbird packages are updated).To be honest, probably. The "beauty" of emojis is that they're universal because they're injected at the most fundamental level of text rendering - the very format for encoding text. This forces all vendors to properly supply glyphs for them.
There's lots of services that offer custom emojis, but trying to federate them between themselves is an effort that only end in either the same system (e.g the major players form a strict consortium that determines the inclusion of new universal emojis that de facto are part of the unicode spec as generic rich text would just look broken without implementing them) as we have right now or utter failure.
Emojis are a form of content, and now you have the content moderation problem. Who hosts the emoji gylphs? What custom emojis are appropriate? How are namespace collisions handled?