This design feature is one that emoji don’t exhibit because they lack the former level of patterning, though all emoji, like words, do have meaning. Among these, he pointed out that human languages exhibit “duality of patterning.” That is, there is a sound system containing the kind of rules that tell English speakers they cannot begin a word with the “ng” sound or end one with the “h” sound, and there is a separate system containing rules about words and phrases, which have meaning.
Linguist Charles Hockett notably stipulated a series of “ design features” common to all languages. One reason the Consortium faces little scrutiny regarding these decisions is that emoji feel different from written language. This market mechanism is only triggered once the Consortium deems an emoji worthy of entering our global language. "Decisions over whose identities find representation in this global language are overtly political, but these decisions are made according to standards that Western Liberal Democracies would never tolerate in other political matters."
As soon as Windows develops a feasible way to present these choices to users, Apple will face pressure to catch up: desisting from adopting new emoji simply is not a viable strategy. As a current example, in 2016 Windows introduced 52,000 new emoji to improve racial diversity among emoji families. However, Russia’s threat to reduce consumption of iPhones was not credible, and the emoji stayed. If their competitors are supporting new and exciting emoji that show up as black boxes on iPhones, Apple is going to lose customers.Īs an example of this market mechanism, Russia protested Apple’s introduction of same-sex couple emoji in 2012. You might remember the frustration of eagerly whipping out your buzzing flip phone in 2010, only to see a series of black boxes where text should have been. Though “vendors” like Apple and Google reserve discretion over the exact art corresponding to a specific emoji, they are unlikely to ever refrain from adopting a new emoji thanks to market pressures. These committees’ decisions have global reach if emoji were a language, it would be the world’s most spoken. Even when a decision is reached, it can take years for the final product to reach people’s screens. Consortium members are chosen on a pay-to-play basis, so these hosting firms are the same ones whose interests are represented. Their top picks go to the Consortium’s Technical Committee for a final vote at a meeting usually hosted on the campus of a giant tech firm. Though their decisions affect the whole world, the committee members are predominantly White Silicon Valley men. Board members then evaluate the hundred-odd proposals they received that year. The requirements are lengthy and include a color and greyscale image of the proposed symbol.
However, barriers to representation arise immediately. The Consortium maintains an image of legitimacy in two ways: anyone can submit a proposal for a new emoji, and a six-month comment period is granted before release. The committee should be replaced with a more representative structure. This selection process lacks democratic accountability and is ripe for reform. The Consortium, specifically the dozen or so members of the Emoji Subcommittee, selects which emoji will make their debut in any given year.
The Unicode Consortium is the body responsible for developing Unicode, the character encoding system that ensures that any text sent from an Android contains the same words when received by an iPhone. Decisions over whose identities find representation in this global language are overtly political, but these decisions are made according to standards that Western Liberal Democracies would never tolerate in other political matters. For that matter, you won’t find an emoji flag for Kurdistan or Tibet. However, despite proposals by LGBTQ+ activists in the years since, there is still no Trans Pride flag emoji. The second was the Rainbow Pride Flag emoji: ?️?, which rapidly joined its geographic peers on phone keyboards everywhere.
In June 2016, an armed shooter opened fire in a gay nightclub in Florida, bringing international prominence to two words.