Unicode committee to meet at Apple campus, discuss addition of redhead emoji

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2017
Unicode Technical Committee members will meet at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., next week to discuss the addition of new emoji or modifiers that would introduce redhead characters in a future iteration of the standard.




Announced on Thursday by the Unicode Consortium, the upcoming committee meeting will decide how best to implement emoji characters with red hair, a highly requested representation that is gaining support among users, according to Emojipedia. In fact, the dearth of redhead emoji has been the most frequent complaint to the publication over the past three months.

An Emoji Subcommittee proposal (PDF link) regarding potential solutions has been drafted and will serve as a jumping off point at the conference next week.

The document describes a number of possibilities, including the creation of an entirely new "person with red hair" emoji, a skin tone modifier, a tag mechanism to change hair color independent of skin tone, displaying an existing blond character with strawberry blond hair and zero-width joiner (ZWJ) sequences for hair color. The latter ZWJ sequence solution describes non-printing characters that can be used to modify or join two emoji together to form a new character, for example "woman" and "red hair."

Redhead emoji are not guaranteed. As noted by the publication, redheads make up only 1 to 2 percent of the world's population, making it difficult to justify work on a major character addition or modification. The meeting next week will help decide whether the red hair project moves forward.

Given Unicode 10 is mere months away from release, redhead emoji are unlikely to appear in a new platform build until at least 2018.

Apple is traditionally one of the first major smartphone manufacturers to implement new emoji in its iOS operating system, and consistently suggests improvements for the standard.

In December, for example, Apple gave iPhone and iPad users access to dozens of new and redesigned characters with the release of iOS 10.2.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 30
    NY1822NY1822 Posts: 621member
    ✒️🖋📧🗿🤽🏼‍♂️🤺🍢🐜  but no redhead
  • Reply 2 of 30
    Shouldn't gingers be working on getting souls first?
    irelandbaconstangtallest skil
  • Reply 3 of 30
    Those appear to be orange heads, not red
    dysamoriatallest skil
  • Reply 4 of 30
    NY1822 said:
    ✒️🖋📧🗿🤽🏼‍♂️🤺🍢🐜  but no redhead
    Red heads but what about grey haired men/women (and the blue haired senior women). Discrimination of old farts should stop now! ¡s /s
    dysamoriaryan2012baconstangargonaut
  • Reply 5 of 30
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Redhead: 🤡
    edited January 2017
  • Reply 6 of 30
    Where are the left-handed emojis? I want equal time too..
    dysamoriabaconstangargonauticoco3
  • Reply 7 of 30
    U must be kidding me... more emoji activity and news ? ...🤢🤕😷😩🤔😬
    dysamoriaanantksundarambaconstangargonaut
  • Reply 8 of 30
    I guess Apple is trying to keep The Irish Authorities Happy ....... ..... 🤣
    anantksundaramleighc-sfosidricthevikingargonaut
  • Reply 9 of 30
    I also hear that Apple sometimes makes new computers and iPads. Coming soon the Ginger iPad Smart Keyboard. 
  • Reply 10 of 30
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,328member
    The people working on the emoji committee must have very liberal and free spending employers with lots of discretionary money to blow. I'd be a bit hesitant to ask for travel authorization and funding to meet face to face to come to an agreement about red headed emoji. Talk about a major boondoggle. 
    fotoformatargonautelijahgspaceraysicoco3
  • Reply 11 of 30
    ppartekim said:
    Where are the left-handed emojis? I want equal time too..
    as a left-handed redhead, I know I'm in a ultra minority class.   


    dysamoriaanomeirelandargonautspacerays
  • Reply 12 of 30
    Aren't emoji supposed to represent a thing, not actually BE the thing? I think there is an area where they are getting too specific. I think the iOS 10.2 occupation-specific people are a bit obnoxious. 

    What's next: rare steak, medium rare steak, well done steak? Chicken noodle, clam chowder, and menudo soup? Ten different dog breeds? 
    dysamoriaargonautspacerays
  • Reply 13 of 30
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    Shouldn't gingers be working on getting souls first?
    Came here to count the ginger bigot posts. Yours was number 1.
    anomeleighc-sfoargonautspacerays
  • Reply 14 of 30
    I'm still waiting for the ability to change the colors of the "family" section with kids/ family etc.
    anantksundaram
  • Reply 15 of 30
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    unicron said:
    Aren't emoji supposed to represent a thing, not actually BE the thing? I think there is an area where they are getting too specific. I think the iOS 10.2 occupation-specific people are a bit obnoxious. 

    What's next: rare steak, medium rare steak, well done steak? Chicken noodle, clam chowder, and menudo soup? Ten different dog breeds? 
    You got it. Emoji has gone from being a useful tool to being a style obsession. It's becoming a bottomless pit of new characters.

     I'm all for diversity. I'm progressive to the point of being a constitutional-republic-socialist. The nature of emoji having human faces invites us to consider diversity so that it represents all of its users. Ok. That's fine and good.

    The bad part: The nature of the tool has changed to where it's stopped being a tool for communication and started being a decorative device. It's turning into an existence for its own sake, like when a hoarder fills their house with things they'll never use, just in case.

    It seems entirely focused on its own growth. More shapes, more objects, more foods, more faces!!! It's like companies that lose their way once they go public, or activist groups that turn into self-perpetuating monolithic institutions that spend more time and money managing their mere existence than acting on their original mission...

    It's difficult to know where to stop, but a standards organization is really supposed to be expert at exactly that. I've never seen a standard get revised as frequently as emoji. That is itself an indicator of bad standard management.

    PS: I love redheads. And yes, those emoji aren't red. They're carrot orange. But that's actually what real redheads look like. There's variation, but "fire engine red" is dyed hair.
    anantksundaramlarryaJinTechspacerays
  • Reply 16 of 30
    Hmm.. nothing against redheads whatsoever, but what about bald people? Afros cuts? Buzz cuts? Grey-haired folks? People with beards? Goatees? Faces with tattoos and/or metal bits?

    And a serious question, as I look at the pictures (please attribute it to ignorance on my part, and nothing more): are there dark-complexioned people with (natural) red hair? Where?
    edited January 2017 baconstangtallest skilspacerays
  • Reply 17 of 30
    ppartekim said:
    Where are the left-handed emojis? I want equal time too..
    as a left-handed redhead, I know I'm in a ultra minority class.   


    Hey, I'm a redheaded stepchild. I've always hated that expression. lol
  • Reply 18 of 30
    mobirdmobird Posts: 752member
    How about more realistic depictions 🔫 if we are so concerned about reality?
    tallest skilicoco3
  • Reply 19 of 30
    plovellplovell Posts: 824member
    I think that DNA already decided that redheads are ALWAYS light-skinned. But I guess there's always L'Oreal.
    tallest skil
  • Reply 20 of 30
    john.bjohn.b Posts: 2,742member
    This was what Tim Cook's meeting at Trump tower was all about?
    firelock
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