Emoji are a hot topic, and not just because there are characters for cakes and cookies, but still no cupcakes. The lack of diversity has been a sticking point: It took years for there to be skin tones that went beyond the default yellow; non-stereotypical professions for women didn't appear until 2016. Don't even try to bring up emoji representation with someone who has red hair.
According to Emojipedia, a recent diversity update came from Facebook, who released 125 new family emoji. These provide far more options than the ones previously available on the platform: There are finally skin tones beyond yellow. But these emoji, available on the desktop and mobile sites, still fall short. Although there are families with single parents and same-sex parents, there are no interracial families. Every family shown appears to be homogenous.
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As TechCrunch points out, representing every possible family variation in emoji is an enormous task: There are 52,000 possible combinations of genders and skin colors. That's a lot of sequences. However, it's a challenge Microsoft successfully tackled last year, in its Windows 10 Anniversary Update.
Although all platforms have access to the sequences released by Unicode, the committee that reviews and approves all new emoji requests, each can decide which to add in their own font. (This difference in fonts is why the emoji sent from an iPhone look different than those sent from Android phones.)
As emoji have exploded in popularity over the years, they've helped create a whole new language and, for better or worse, changed how we communicate. So it makes sense that redheads, members of interracial families, and others who don't see themselves represented in the characters on their screens feel strongly about it. If there can be not one, but two different potato emoji (roasted sweet potato and regular potato), there surely should be ones for every type of family.
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