Oh no, another Unicode revision is coming with even more questionable emoji additions.
At this point, with emoji the most exciting thing to happen to written communication in centuries, emoji are the only reason for Unicode revisions anymore.
Unicode 10 looks like another move to scrub away the Japanese manga heritage of emoji and replace it with things that PC obsessed westerners really care about: skin tones, yoga and junk food.
Skin variations are a decent idea but impractical; most people just end up using the gross yellow defaults. And skin variations will never get around one simple basic fact: small icons require the highest possible contrast to work at those small sizes. A light background color is always going to show the most detail. Darker skin tone, less detail. Period.
Here’s the thing about emoji, they only represent my mood, not me. That’s why Japanese guys never had a problem using a cutie-white princess emoji. Kawai! What’s the big deal anyway, it all just manga, right?
Progress is progress but I miss the simplicity, and fun, of 2010-era emoji.
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