Well, you’re certainly not alone in your distaste for the new design. @eevee just today said “cool how we improved gender diversity by slowly changing <https://twitter.com/eevee/status/865110401192648705> from ‘ambiguous/neutral’ to ‘explicit color-coded binary, default usually <https://twitter.com/eevee/status/865110401192648705> male’” <https://twitter.com/eevee/status/865110401192648705>
On the other hand, quoting @zaccolley: “if you treat emoji like pictures: <https://twitter.com/zaccolley/status/865114030771507200> yay blobs, if you treat emoji like language: yay consistency” <https://twitter.com/zaccolley/status/865114030771507200> Ultimately, the new emoji designs will make our digital communication less ambiguous — I’m just not sure if that’s a good change or not, and I certainly don’t enjoy Apple being the default (on principle and for their designs specifically). Quoting UTR #51: “General-purpose emoji for people and body parts should also not be given overly specific images: the general recommendation is to be as neutral as possible regarding race, ethnicity, and gender.” Unambiguously, Apple has failed to meet these technical guidelines, in a blatant and unapologetic manner, and that’s why I liked the blobs — they bucked norms, refused to conform to trends, and made emoji more friendly to people who didn’t want to attach a gender to their every expression. I think that’s valuable and I’m sad to see it go. And a serious response to this joke letter: Given that Google pays $18,000 / annum to vote on new emoji, it seems unlikely that the Consortium will just kick them out. On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 7:40 AM, zelpa via Unicode <[email protected]> wrote: > http://blog.emojipedia.org/rip-blobs-google-redesigns-emojis/ > > Is this some kind of joke? Have Google put ANY thought into their emoji > design? First they bastardise the cute blob emoji, then they make their > emoji gendered, now they've literally just copied Apple's emoji. It's > sickening. Disgusting. I propose we hold a petition for the Unicode > Consortium to ban Google from designing emoji in the future, and make them > revert back to the Android 5 designs. Everyone in favour of this please > leave a response, anybody not in favour please rethink your opinion. >
