The Emojipedia blog gives a preview of what could be gracing the world’s chats in the coming year. In September it will be decided which emoji from these pictures will make it onto the big stage – and which will not. However, as the blog explains, every suggestion is likely to be taken. At least that was the case last year.
So far, you can choose from a shaking face, two hands, several objects, four animals and two symbols. There should also be new colors for the heart emoji – light blue, gray and pink would be possible. As I said, the current selection is only a preview, the symbols have all been requested but not officially approved.
The decision will be made in September
And it works like this: As soon as someone has an idea of which symbol could be missing, you submit your suggestion to the so-called Unicode Emoji Subcommittee a. This consortium is a non-profit organization that develops and maintains the Unicode standard. Members include Adobe, Apple, Google, Microsoft and other big names in the IT industry. The Unicode standard, in turn, defines how writing is stored and displayed electronically. The character set includes around 145,000 characters, including emojis.
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In order to apply for a new symbol, you first have to wade through countless documents and observe various rules, as befits a consortium of authorities. If you actually find an emoji that doesn’t exist yet and whose meaning is not currently represented by a similar symbol, you can submit a suggestion.
A prominent example from the last big wave of new symbols is the disco ball, which the German radio presenter Gero Simone painstakingly brought to the smartphones of the world after more than three years of work and waiting. Simone explains how he managed to do this in a contribution of the ARD Morgenmagazin.
Graphic implementation harbors potential for controversy
If the consortium agrees to a proposal, the new emoji will be included in the character set. It is then up to the manufacturers to implement the symbols graphically for their platform. This is also the reason why some emojis are very different from each other on Twitter, on Android, on iOS and on Facebook. Because apparently the specifications for the final implementation are relatively loose.
+++ Also read: The history of emojis goes back 4000 years to Turkish Karkamis +++
And that leads to internet disputes like the burger scandal. In 2017, after a long discussion about the in-house burger emoji, Google gave in after countless people complained that the cheese belongs on the patty, not under it. And so the Internet giant reassigned the cheeseburger – this time in the order most people felt was correct.
source: Emojipedia