I discovered Unicode.org after doing some research on emoji history, and became fascinated with the resources listed on their website. Unicode.org is the online home of the Unicode Consortium, the group who maintains universal standards for computer encoding. Their work ensures computers around the world process and interpret text in a standard way. 💻
Why is the Unicode Consortium becoming so popular?
The Unicode Consortium is reaching celebrity status because image-based emoji characters (which are part of Unicode) are highly popular forms of text communication. They are used in text messages, emails, and throughout social media. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary named an emoji as “Word of the Year” in 2015. 😂
Whether or not you’re an emoji fan, their use and prevalence are indisputable. Personally, I think emoji are fun and creative. They spark bright conversations over text messaging with images to humanize the tone. 💡
Which emoji candidates are coming next?
I was curious about the list of emoji candidates on the Unicode website. So many cultural implications exist on this very page. For example, gender equality issues are represented with the addition of a prince, dancing man, and Mother Christmas (to match the existing princess, dancing woman 💃, and Santa Claus). Endangered species are portrayed with the inclusion of animals like the gorilla and rhino. Even healthy eating gets a boost with a superfood (avocado!) being added to the list.
What a fascinating and potentially stressful job it would be to decide the next emoji. Did you know that anyone can make a proposal for a new emoji? The submission process is explained in detail on the Unicode website ==> http://www.unicode.org/emoji/selection.html.
Which emoji is used the most?
Curious about which characters are used the most? Unicode.org links to a site called emojitracker.com, which displays the world’s most tweeted emoji characters in real-time. Looks like the crying happy face is still holding first place.
Stay tuned. From what the Unicode Consortium says, final decisions on candidates for Unicode 9.0 will be made in June 2016. At that point we shall see if Mrs. Claus makes the cut. 🎅
Lorraine Akemann | Cofounder and Editor | Moms With Apps
Photo credit [Flickr: Marc Di Luzio]
