Happy #WorldEmojiDay 2019 🎉 Here at Emojipedia we're be celebrating in a few ways.

The National Museum of Cinema

Emojipedia partnered with the National Museum of Cinema in Turin for an exhibition launching today (July 17). The exhibition looks at physiognomy and how these historical works of cinema relate to modern-day emojis.

The emoji archive section features details about Emojipedia, and recaps some of our recent work to archive old emoji sets. This is the first exhibition to show the original 1997 emoji set from SoftBank.

British Library

The British Library has an ongoing exhibition Making Your Mark: From Hieroglyphics to Emojis and for #WorldEmojiDay is hosting and evening with myself and Unicode President Mark Davis.

World Emoji Awards

The World Emoji Awards are where we attempt to detemine the most popular or most anticipated emojis each year.

This year the Most Popular Emoji award was determined using Emojipedia data, and the Most Anticipated Emoji was put to a public vote.

Emoji Wrap

Our World Emoji Day edition of the Emoji Wrap podcast and newsletter came out today.

Announcements

As always, companies often put their own emoji announcements on World Emoji Day. There's far too many to keep track of online, but those of most interest to the Emojipedia audience may be:

• Apple: Apple offers a look at new emoji coming to iPhone this fall
• Google: When you can’t find the words, 65 new emoji are here for you
• Microsoft: Inside the Microsoft Emoji Design Studio
• Unicode: The Unicode Consortium Launches New Website in Celebration of World Emoji Day

Unicode also posted about considering color options for emoji updates in future here.

When will you get the new emojis?

The most common question we get at this time of year is when the new emojis are coming to each platform. Here's the best rundown that we have:

• ✅ Twitter
• ✅ Microsoft
• ✅ OpenMoji
• ✅ JoyPixels
• 🔜 August 2019: Google (in beta now)
• 🔜 October 2019: Apple (estimate)
• 🔜 November 2019: Facebook (estimate)
• 🔜 December 2019: WhatsApp (estimate)
• 🔜 January 2020: Samsung (estimate)

Both Twitter and Microsoft have Emoji 12.0 support in their shipping products right now, and Google has been rolling out its new emoji support in Android betas since May.

Apple held off showing its new emojis until today, but these haven't reached even betas of iOS at this time. Facebook, WhatsApp and Samsung remain, and generally update later in the year.

View the 2019 emoji list.

Among the newest members in the ever-growing emoji family in 2019 is Yawning Face, which is covering its mouth with a hand. This hand is notable not only because the gesture is central to depicting the act of a yawn and the tiredness or boredom the emoji is meant to convey, but also because that hand brings Yawning Face into a select cohort: smileys with hands.

Of the  more than 100 emojis classified as smileys, most are yellow, cartoon-styled faces with different expressions that communicate various feelings or ideas. A few have props, e.g., 🤠 Cowboy Face, and with the addition of Yawning Face, five now have hands.

🤫 Shushing Face is lifting a finger to its lips with a silencing “Shh!” of a librarian or a divulging “Can you keep a secret?” of a confidant. 🤭 Face With Hand Over Mouth is shielding a gasping “Oh my!” or coy “Oops!” while 🤔 Thinking Face is scratching its chin deep in thought or in a drawn-out, skeptical “Hmm…”

And then there’s 🤗, which surprises many when they learn it’s officially named Hugging Face. What are those hands up to, exactly? Are they offering a hug? Are they doing jazz hands? Are they trying to grab you? Those ambiguous hands are what we’re up to in this Emojiology.

🔤 Meaning

🤗 Hugging Face features a warm smile and, on most platforms, hands with its palms facing out, intended to depict the act of hugging. As such, the emoji can express thanks, support, love, care, and other positive, affectionate feelings.

On many platforms, the splayed or outspread appearance of its hands resemble what is popularly taken as jazz hands. In this interpretation, 🤗 Hugging Face can indicate such feelings as excitement, enthusiasm, or a sense of flourish or accomplishment.

📜 A Brief History of Digital Hugs

🤗 Hugging Face was approved under Unicode 8.0 in 2015, but one of the earliest implementations of a hugging pictograph was on Microsoft’s MSN Messenger. This beloved instant messaging client was launched 20 years ago this July and entertained many an online chatter until its plug was pulled in 2014.

MSN Messenger offered many innovations over its long run, including, especially in its 6.0 update in 2003, emoticons. When a user typed a text-based emoticon, MSN Messenger converted it into an emoji-like icon, just as punching out a :) on many apps becomes 🙂 Slightly Smiling Face today.

MSN Messenger supported two hugging emoticons. The input for left hug was ({), whose curly open bracket {—also called a brace, evocatively enough for our purposes here—is a clever and efficient way to depict a person giving a hug from the left. (We can find <0>, (()), and o()o, among others, as other typographical hugs online as early as 1995). MSN Messenger rendered left hug ({) as a White man in a green top with his arms circling out from the left. One can complete the embrace with the closed curly bracket of right hug, (}), which turned into a Black woman in a blue top, her arms circling from the right.

That MSN Messenger’s hugs are directionally gendered and racialized seems odd and unnecessary today, but the fact of that directionality is quite elegant. One can send out a left hug to another, who can reciprocate it with a right hug, a kind of enactment of a hug over the interwebs.

Another notable early e-hug came from Google, who introduced nearly 80 block-shaped, emoji-like characters on Gmail in October 2008. Among them, as we saw in our last Emojiology, was 🙃 Upside-Down Face. The set also included a charming animated pair—a touching, three-part tale, really, of a hug.

Act I. A yellow smiley, with a blank, if not glum expression, stares ahead on the left. Facing it on its right is a companion who, with a cheery grin and extended nubs for arms, sees that its pal could use a hug.

Act II. The sensitive hugger slides left and folds its downcast friend into its arms, its grin spreading and eyes closing into a bigger smile.

Act III. Upon contact, the hug-ee first flashes the surprise of an “Ooh! I didn’t know I needed a hug!” before waving its own nubby arms with a beaming smile, as if celebrating: “Woo-hoo! Yeah, I definitely needed a hug!”

Gmail’s emojis were largely based on early sets from the Japanese cell phone carrier au by KDDI, and records of Gmail’s initial emoji support in Japan link 🤗 Hugging Face to a Japanese emoticon (kaomoji): ＼(^-^)／.

A face with smiling eyes and extended arms, this hugging kaomoji anticipates 🤗 Hugging Face (in both form and sense of excitement) as it was implemented in Unicode 6.0 in 2015—and this makes Gmail’s animated hug a true original. Indeed, most of Gmail’s emojis (66 of 79) were mapped directly onto Unicode 6.0 in 2010, which exported emoji from Japan to the rest of the world. Gmail’s hug was not. The embracers were not immediately embraced into the standard.

🙋 Challenges with 🤗 Hugging Face

The great virtue of MSN Messenger and Gmail’s 🤗 Hugging Face predecessors is the obvious one: it takes two to hug. For a hug, in its most common definition, involves clasping someone else tightly in one’s arms.

In its current form, 🤗 Hugging Face only tells half the story of a hug. But, on many platforms, it tells it resourcefully, as many designs implement the same, rosy face as their 😊 Smiling Face With Smiling Eyes and hands similar to their 👐 Open Hands.

The major exception is Facebook, whose hands bear Mickey Mouse-esque white gloves, as is true of its other smileys with hands. Those hands are facing inward, as if inviting a hug with a chummy “Bring it in” or coddling itself. (Facebook may have designed its hands to face inward because outward facing hands in white gloves might too closely resemble, in fact, jazz hands.) Under Android 8.0, Google’s 🤗 Hugging Face had similarly positioned hands.

And under its 2.0 release, Facebook’s hands were reaching out towards the viewer in perspective. Which leads us to a first challenge of 🤗 Hugging Face. Some find the emoji creepy, its hands striking them as more grabby and grope-y than warming and welcoming, and its smile, as a consequence, seeming more leering than disarming— like the witch in the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel.”

Perhaps people experience a mild, if sometimes joking, unease with 🤗 Hugging Face because there is something uncanny about those hands. In contrast to the emoji’s more cartoon-like face, the hands seem at once too lifelike, as five fingers break with the Western convention of using four fingers in cartoon characters, and too unnatural, both disproportionately small compared to the head and awkwardly positioned.

For others, the appearance and placement of the hands aren’t disturbing. They just don’t look like someone proffering a hug. Which leads us to a second challenge of 🤗 Hugging Face. Many think the emoji is performing jazz hands (also called spirit fingers), a gesture in musical theater where the hands are held, often at the sides, with palms facing forward and fingers splayed, typically waving. The dance move serves as a flourish, and in popular culture, has become a playful or campy way to convey excitement or a sense accomplishment, a gestural “Ta-da!” or “Voila!”

From its debut in 2015 to today, people—including the likes of Elon Musk as recently as 2018—have interpreted 🤗 Hugging Face as jazz hands.

Musk even discovered that Apple devices suggest 🤗 Hugging Face when you type jazz hands on its keyboards.

✅ Examples

🤗 Hugging Face is intended to depict a hug, and many do indeed use it to indicate hugs or the care they show. (This application may likely be influenced by the fact of 🤗 Hugging Face's name, not form.)

By extension, 🤗 Hugging Face is occasionally used to represent the concept of support or acceptance more generally, e.g., "embracing" a new idea.

While a considerable number may find 🤗 Hugging Face’s appearance creepy, the emoji isn’t widely used to be creepy. Perceived creepiness tends to surface in discussions of the emoji as an emoji.

By and large, 🤗 Hugging Face is used to express to a wide array of positive sentiments—praise, admiration, gratitude, joy, contentment, excitement—more in line with the enthusiasm of jazz hands, a sort of 🙌 Raising Hands with a smiling face.

🗒️ Usage

So, the distinctive hands of 🤗 Hugging Face don’t suggest a hug to many users. That's why People Hugging Emoji is a candidate for inclusion in Unicode 13.0. In her proposal for it, Jennifer Daniel, creative director of Google's emoji program, explains:

Hugs aren’t always happy hugs, sometimes they are meant to offer comfort and the existing HUGGING FACE emoji would be wholly inappropriate to send when engaged in a “heavy” conversation ... The intent of this emoji is to convey the intimacy, nuance, and affection that only being hugged or hugging someone can articulate. A singular figure cannot express the sentiment effectively and the proposed TWO PEOPLE HUGGING emoji includes two figures in a warm embrace ... the “🤗” emoji is wholly insufficient in communicating the feeling of a hug and has come to be known as “jazz hands.”

A People Hugging Emoji might fill the gap of a consoling hug left by 🤗 Hugging Face in emojidom—and that’s OK. Because 🤗 Hugging Face, though its name may not match its popular usage, fills a different gap: the need to express a sunny, hands-in-the-air "Yay!" of a, well, ＼(^-^)／character.

Ambiguity in an emoji’s meaning can create confusion, to be sure, but that’s not always a liability. Because ambiguity, as we see in the interpretation of  🤗 Hugging Face as jazz hands, also leads to creativity. 🤗

Samsung's Galaxy Note 10 will ship later this month with support for all the new emojis approved in 2019.

Among the updates are people with mobility aids such as a wheelchair, cane, or hearing aid, a flamingo, otter, yawning face as well as a full suite of colors for the heart, circle and square shapes.

Samsung users will see new emojis available on the emoji keyboard, which seems obvious, but hasn't always been the case for previous emoji updates from Samsung which sometimes shipped with no way to input the new characters.

The exception here is new gender-inclusive emojis such as people holding hands or the deaf person have distinct appearances from the women or men, but are not shown on the keyboard. This might change in a future update.

Mixed Skin Tones

Among the additions in this update is the ability to change the skin tone of the various women, men and gender inclusive people holding hands. This addresses a commonly requested complaint that emojis with more than one person rarely support skin tones, and instead stick to the default yellow.

These skin tone options are shown in a giant press-and-hold menu, with 15 additional possibilities for two women or two men, and 25 options for the woman-man combination.

While vendors have been able to support extended skin tones for a number of years now, many choose to stick with Unicode "Recommended for General Interchange (RGI) list to ensure cross-platform compatibility. In 2019 expect to see all vendors support the same hand-holders with these combinations.

Release

These updates, noticed by Emojipedia user Alexander, these changes appear to be already available to some users and will be released to the public as part of Samsung One UI 1.5, coming installed on the Galaxy Note 10 from August 23, 2019.

Other eligible Samsung devices will also see these updates over time, but exactly who and when will vary based on specific phone model, region, and/or phone carrier.

Oh and what's One UI you ask? It's the new name for the software that Samsung puts on its Android devices giving them a different look and functionality to Google's stock Android. This adds or replaces various apps and parts of the operating system, including the emoji keyboard and emoji font. This was previously known as Samsung Experience, and before that, Samsung TouchWiz.

Read More

• Samsung One UI 1.0 Emoji Changelog (early 2019)
• Samsung Experience 9.5 Emoji Changelog (mid-2018)
• Browse all current Samsung emojis

New emojis were approved by the Unicode Consortium as part of Emoji 12.0 in March 2019. So when do they arrive on phones?

The rollout date for each platform varies. On iOS, updates apply to all apps at the same time, as emojis are provided system wide. On Android, many apps have their own rollout schedule: WhatsApp is on its own timeline, as is Twitter with Twemoji.

Samsung phones run Android, but use their own emoji set too. Here's when to expect new emojis on each platform.

New Emoji Support Already Released (First Half of 2019)

The following platforms already support the 230 new emojis added in Emoji 12.0:

• ✅ Twitter
• ✅ Microsoft
• ✅ JoyPixels

Twitter

Twitter uses its own Twemoji set on the Twitter website and Twitter for Android. New emojis rolled out in Twemoji in June 2019, and so are already available on the web and Android.

Users of the iOS Twitter app see native system-wide emoji support from Apple, so will need to wait for an iOS update.

Microsoft

Microsoft began rolling out Windows 10 May 2019 Update in May 2019, which added support for Emoji 12.0.

Users with this update already have new emojis, but this has not yet reached all Windows 10 users due to the staged rollout process used by Microsoft.

New Emoji Support Coming Soon (Second Half of 2019)

The majority of vendors will be rolling out new emoji support in the second half of 2019.

This means users of iOS, updated Android phones, Facebook and WhatsApp should be able to use the new emojis by the end of the year.

Estimates for new emoji releases in 2019 as follows:

• 🔜 August 2019: Samsung
• 🔜 September 2019: Google (estimate, in beta now)
• 🔜 October 2019: Apple (previewed, not yet in beta)
• 🔜 November 2019: Facebook (estimate)
• 🔜 December 2019: WhatsApp (estimate)

Samsung

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 already includes new emoji support on pre-release models sent to reviewers, and comes to the public on August 23, 2019.

No date is known for the wider release of the One UI software update for other Samsung phones.

Google

Google has been testing new emoji support in the Android Q beta since May 2019, and is set to publicly roll out this update in late August or September 2019.

An update to Gboard - required to actually input the new emojis - is also available and shows the new emojis if running the Android Q beta.

Apple

One of the most frequent questions asked by Emojipedia users is when Apple will release its new emoji support each year.

Despite having less marketshare than Android, the fact that iOS updates are released to such a large number of devices on the first day tends to give more certainty to users that the new emojis can be interchanged, compared to Android and Windows which roll out over a longer period of time.

Apple has confirmed new emoji support to be coming to macOS and iOS in “fall 2019” which means iPhone, iPad and Mac users should be sending and recieving new emojis by the start of November 2019.

In the past few years Apple has opted to include new emoji support around 4-6 weeks after the main iOS update for the year. Last year: iOS 12.1 in October 2018, the year before: iOS 11.1 in October 2017.

Facebook

There have been rumblings of new emoji support appearing for select Facebook users. This follows a past trend where a small subset of new emojis appear for a small number of users, ahead of a months-long rollout to other users for the full set.

No release date has been provided by Facebook for new emoji support.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp tends to update its new emoji support late in the year, sometimes spilling into the next year. This applies to Android and web users only, as WhatsApp for iOS uses the native system-wide emoji font from Apple.

The most common pattern for WhatsApp will be to release new emojis in the WhatsApp public beta several weeks or months prior to the full release.

What's new in 2019

Just want the list of which emojis are new in 2019? Check out Emoji 12.0.

What's coming in 2020

The draft emoji candidates for 2020 are being worked on right now. Check out Emoji 13.0 to see what might make the cute.

Today Samsung has begun shipping its new Galaxy Note 10 device, featuring an emoji keyboard with yawning face, white heart, pinching hand and other new emoji designs.

A selection of the new emoji designs featured in Samsung One UI 1.5.

A total of 215 new emojis have been introduced in Samsung One UI 1.5, a new software update featured on the Galaxy Note 10^[1]. Other eligible Samsung devices are expected to be offered a Samsung One UI 1.5 update over the coming weeks and months. Each of the new emojis originate from Unicode's recent Emoji 12.0 release^[2].

Samsung One UI 1.5, shows most new emojis on the emoji keyboard, with a few exceptions this time around.

While accessing new emojis on the emoji keyboard might be considered a standard feature, this cannot be taken for granted on Samsung devices: last year's Samsung Experience 9.5 introduced support for new emojis but didn't include any way to input them on the default emoji keyboard.

Above: The emoji keyboard on Galaxy Note 10, featuring various new 👭 Women Holding Hands designs. Photo: Jeremy Burge / Emojipedia.

🆕 New

As noted in previous changelogs, while Emoji 12.0 features new emojis across all categories, there are three major themes within this emoji update: people holding hands with various skin tone options, an expanded selection of colorful shapes (including hearts), and an expanded suite of accessibility options.

A number of new emojis are displayed with a gender-neutral appearance when no gender is defined.^[3]

The new 🧏 Deaf Person emoji has a unique design instead of emulating the either 🧏‍♂️ Deaf Man or 🧏‍♀️ Deaf Woman^[4].

Such emulation has historically been the design convention for most non-gender-specific Samsung designs, including 👮 Police Officer (which displays as 👮‍♂️ Man Police Officer), 🧛 Vampire (displays as 🧛‍♀️ Woman Vampire), and 💆 Person Getting Massage (displays as 💆‍♀️ Woman Getting Massage).

Despite the introduction of some new gender neutral designs (and Google's impending redesigns of non-gender-specifying emojis) Samsung One UI 1.5 continues to display previously implemented people as a gender-specific equivalent.

Above: the 👩 Woman, gender-neutral and 👨 Man versions of 🧏 Deaf Person, 🧍 Person Standing, 👮 Police Officer, and 💆 Person Getting Massage as they appear in Samsung One UI 1.5.

People Holding Hands

71 new emojis in Samsung One UI 1.5 show two people holding hands, most of which involved the use of two different skin tone modifiers.^[2:1]

These new designs are created using ZWJ Sequence combinations of 👨 Man and 👩 Woman emojis, or two non-gender-specific 🧑 Person emojis.^[5]

All of the various gender-neutral 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People Holding Hands combinations feature both individuals clad in green, akin to the new gender-neutral 🧍 Person Standing and 🧎 Person Kneeling designs. However, in the versions of 👬 Men Holding Hands the second man is also glad in green despite having a specified gender identity.^[5:1]

Colored Shapes

There are 14 new shape emojis introduced in Samsung One UI 1.5, meaning that emoji hearts, circles and squares are now all available on Samsung devices in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black and brown.

• 🤎 Brown Heart
• 🤍 White Heart
• 🟠 Orange Circle
• 🟡 Yellow Circle
• 🟢 Green Circle
• 🟣 Purple Circle
• 🟤 Brown Circle
• 🟥 Red Square
• 🟧 Orange Square
• 🟨 Yellow Square
• 🟩 Green Square
• 🟦 Blue Square
• 🟪 Purple Square
• 🟫 Brown Square

Accessibility

The new accessibility emojis in Samsung One UI 1.5 are as follows:

• 🦻 Ear With Hearing Aid
• 🦾 Mechanical Arm
• 🦿 Mechanical Leg
• 🦼 Motorized Wheelchair
• 🦽 Manual Wheelchair
• 🦯 Probing Cane
• 🧏 Deaf Person
• 🧏‍♂️ Deaf Man
• 🧏‍♀️ Deaf Woman
• 👨‍🦯 Man With Probing Cane
• 👩‍🦯 Woman With Probing Cane
• 👨‍🦼 Man in Motorized Wheelchair
• 👨‍🦽 Man in Manual Wheelchair
• 👩‍🦼 Woman in Motorized Wheelchair
• 👩‍🦽 Woman in Manual Wheelchair

There are also two accessibility-orientated emojis within the animal category: 🦮 Guide Dog and 🐕‍🦺 Service Dog. They join 🦩 Flamingo and 🦨 Skunk, amongst others.

Above: the eight new animal emoji designs as they appear in Samsung One UI 1.5.

• 🦮 Guide Dog
• 🐕‍🦺 Service Dog
• 🦧 Orangutan
• 🦥 Sloth
• 🦦 Otter
• 🦨 Skunk
• 🦩 Flamingo
• 🦪 Oyster

The popular food and drink category has also had eight new emojis introduced, such as 🧆 Falafel and 🧊 Ice Cube.

Above: the new Emoji 12.0 food and drink emojis in Samsung One UI 1.5.

• 🧄 Garlic
• 🧅 Onion
• 🧇 Waffle
• 🧆 Falafel
• 🧈 Butter
• 🧃 Beverage Box
• 🧉 Maté
• 🧊 Ice Cube

Further new emojis introduced in Samsung One UI 1.5 include 🛕 Hindu Temple, 🪂 Parachute, 🥻 Sari, 🩰 Ballet Shoes, and 🩸 Drop of Blood. The full list of new designs can be viewed here.

🆙 Changed

A total of 53 previously-released emoji designs have been changed in Samsung One UI 1.5, with several noteworthy changes detailed below.

👯 People With Bunny Ears now displays two women clad in black dresses and bunny ears, as opposed to a single woman wearing white bunny ears. This change brings Samsung's designs of this emoji in line with that of other major vendors, removing an long-standing instance of design fragmentation.^[6]

🦍 Gorilla now displays as the full ape instead of just its head.^[7]

🐓 Rooster now features brown feathers and large green tail plumage.

🧴 Lotion Bottle is now cream-colored with a pump dispenser.

🇨🇷 Flag of Costa Rica had removed the national coat of arms.

🇳🇵 Flag of Nepal is now its correct double-pennon shape.

🇵🇪 Flag of Peru now longer features Peru's coat of arms, as per the design of all other major vendors.

⏸ Unchanged

Despite the changes listed above, Samsung emoji update has come without Samsung addressing one of its most persistent but least visible instances of emoji design fragmentation.

In Samsung One UI 1.5, the 🇺 Regional Indicator Symbol Letter U emoji continues to display a capital "V" (instead of U), while the 🇻 Regional Indicator Symbol Letter V emoji continues display a "U" (instead of V).

Above: 🇺 Regional Indicator Symbol Letter U (top) and 🇻 Regional Indicator Symbol Letter V (bottom) as they are displayed across a series of major vendors' emoji sets.

Additionally, the 👁️‍🗨️ Eye in Speech Bubble emoji remains absent in Samsung One UI 1.5, having been removed from Samsung's emoji set in 2018.

📶 Release

The Galaxy Note 10 is the first Samsung device to be shipped with Samsung One UI 1.5 out of the box.

As with previous Samsung updates, it is expected that Samsung One UI 1.5 will be slowly rolled out to additional Samsung devices over the next weeks and months, with its availability will vary by location, device and mobile phone carrier. However, many Samsung devices may not ever receive the Samsung One UI 1.5 update.

Users are advised to get in touch with Samsung or their carrier to see if or when they plan to support this update on their own device.

• Browse every Samsung emoji
• New emoji in Samsung One UI 1.5
• Emoji changed in Samsung One UI 1.5
• The Samsung One UI 1.0 emoji changelog

Today Google has begun the rollout of its latest OS update, Android 10. This latest version of Android introduces the latest emojis such as flamingo and deaf person, while also implementing a considerable number of long-previewed gender neutral designs.

Above: Emoji updates included as part of Android 10. Image: Google designs / Emojipedia composite.

This update features 236 emojis new to Android: 230 from the 2019 emoji list plus six minor flags from Emoji 1.0 appearing for the first time.

Additionally, nearly 800 existing emoji designs have been modified in Android 10, with over 300 of these changes being made in the name of a more gender-neutral presentation.

Not only is the gender inclusive appearance of these emojis more consistent with how the Unicode Consortium defines many emojis (without gender specified), these changes also remove the need to choose a specific gender when sending an emoji such as a police officer, runner, or surfer.

Above: Gboard in Android 10 showing gender-neutral emojis by default. Photo: Emojipedia / Jeremy Burge.

🆕 Gender Neutral

Android 10's new gender neutral designs are not technically new emojis, however the new designs in this release give the existing 'ungendered' emojis a distinct appearance for the first time since gender variations have been supported.

Prior to this update, many emojis which didn't specify a gender^[1] would be displayed as either their equivalent 👩 Woman or 👨 Man emoji.

For example, the 👮 Police Officer emoji was shown with the same design as the 👮‍♂️ Man Police Officer on Google platforms, while 💇 Person Getting Haircut displayed the same design as 💇‍♀️ Woman Getting Haircut).

Above: A comparison of several 👩 Woman, 👨 Man and non-gender-specifying emoji designs between Android 9.0 (before) and Android 10 (after).

Gender neutral emojis are now mostly shown to wear orange in designs where clothes are visible and not a core element of the design (e.g. 👮 Police Officer's uniform remains the traditional navy blue for all variants). Under this scheme, 👩 Women wear purple and 👨 Men are dressed in teal.

In making this change, Google becomes the only major^[2] vendor to follow Unicode guidelines which state:

“human-form emoji should normally be depicted in a gender-neutral way unless gender appearance is explicitly specified”

Google once displayed the majority of human emojis without a clear gender, with many of the infamous blobs having no gender in 2014.

These neutral designs on Android lasted until specific options for women and men were added to the Unicode Standard in 2016.

In 2019 many of these emojis come back with a human appearance which sits logically alongside the other gender options for women and men, which didn't exist in 2014.

It is currently unknown if other major vendors will make similar gender-neutral designs revisions in their future emoji updates. Google leads the way on this front.

🆕 New in Emoji 12.0

All 230 new Emoji 12.0 additions are avilable in Android 10: 61 new emoji codepoints and 169 new recommended ZWJ sequences.

Above: All 236 new emojis in Android 10. Image: Google designs / Emojipedia composite.

While each emoji category has seen at least one new addition^[3], there are three major themes evident within Emoji 12.0: pairs of people holding hands^[4], greater representation of the differently-abled, and an increased selection of colors for heart and other shape emojis.

People Holding Hands

A total of 71 new hand-holding emoji designs have been introduced in Android 10. These are constructed via different ZWJ sequence combinations of 👩 Woman, 👨 Man and 🤝 Handshake^[4:1]. All of the existing skin tone modifiers are available for all possible combinations of the people holding hands, allowing for the representation of interracial couples on Android for the first time.

Above: A selection of the new people holding hands emojis in Android 10

Colored Shapes

Emoji 12.0 features 14 new hearts, circles and square designs, with each of these shapes now being available in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black and brown.

Above: A selection of the new shape options as they appear in Android 10.

• 🤎 Brown Heart
• 🤍 White Heart
• 🟠 Orange Circle
• 🟡 Yellow Circle
• 🟢 Green Circle
• 🟣 Purple Circle
• 🟤 Brown Circle
• 🟥 Red Square
• 🟧 Orange Square
• 🟨 Yellow Square
• 🟩 Green Square
• 🟦 Blue Square
• 🟪 Purple Square
• 🟫 Brown Square

Accessibility

Finally, Emoji 12.0 also features a selection of new accessibility-orientated emoji designs. Those that display either a person (e.g. 👩‍🦯 Woman With Probing Cane) or non-mechanical body part (🦻 Ear With Hearing Aid) also support skin tone modifiers.

Above: A selection of the new accessibility emojis in Android 10.0.

• 🦻 Ear With Hearing Aid
• 🦾 Mechanical Arm
• 🦿 Mechanical Leg
• 🦼 Motorized Wheelchair
• 🦽 Manual Wheelchair
• 🦯 Probing Cane
• 🧏 Deaf Person
• 🧏‍♂️ Deaf Man
• 🧏‍♀️ Deaf Woman
• 👨‍🦯 Man With Probing Cane
• 👩‍🦯 Woman With Probing Cane
• 👨‍🦼 Man in Motorized Wheelchair
• 👨‍🦽 Man in Manual Wheelchair
• 👩‍🦼 Woman in Motorized Wheelchair
• 👩‍🦽 Woman in Manual Wheelchair

There are also two accessibility-focused designs amongst the eight new animal emojis, namely 🦮 Guide Dog and 🐕‍🦺 Service Dog.

Above: the eight new animal emojis in Android 10.

• 🦮 Guide Dog
• 🐕‍🦺 Service Dog
• 🦧 Orangutan
• 🦥 Sloth
• 🦦 Otter
• 🦨 Skunk
• 🦩 Flamingo
• 🦪 Oyster

Above: the Emoji 12.0 food designs as they appear in Android 10.

• 🧄 Garlic
• 🧅 Onion
• 🧇 Waffle
• 🧆 Falafel
• 🧈 Butter
• 🧃 Beverage Box
• 🧉 Maté
• 🧊 Ice Cube

Other noteworthy emojis featured in Emoji 12.0 include a 🤏 Pinching Hand, a 🛕 Hindu Temple, and a 🩸 Drop of Blood intended to represent menstruation.

Above: A selection of other Emoji 12.0 designs as they appear in Android 10.

However, the Emoji 12.0 designs are not the only emoji designs to newly appear in Android 10. Six flag emojis previously recommended for general interchange (RGI) have also been newly added to Google's emoji design set.

Above: the Android 10 design for six flag emojis previously RGI but not supported by Google.

• 🇧🇱 Flag: St. Barthélemy
• 🇧🇶 Flag: Caribbean Netherlands
• 🇲🇶 Flag: Martinique
• 🇷🇪 Flag: Réunion
• 🇹🇫 Flag: French Southern Territories
• 🇽🇰 Flag: Kosovo

🆙 Changed in Android 10

🤤 Drooling Face now has its eyes closed and mouth smiling, as per the design of other major emoji vendors.

😥 Sad but Relieved Face has had its bead of sweat moved down from its temple to alongside its cheek, as per other vendors.

🙌 Raising Hands now features wrists, akin to most other major vendors.

The 🦸 Superhero emojis are now more muscular and feature a larger cape. 🦸‍♀️ Woman Superhero is shown as an example below.

🧜 Merperson now features folded arms obscuring their chest, as well as an orange tail and hair style in-keeping with Google's new gender neutral design conventions. Previously the same design as 🧜‍♀️ Mermaid was displayed for this emoji.

🧞 Genie is now displayed as full-bodied supernatural being emerging from a lamp, as opposed to a shoulders-up design. Previously the design for 🧞‍♀️ Woman Genie was displayed for the non-gender-specifying 🧞 Genie.

As well as featuring a more gender neutral design, the 👷 Construction Worker emojis are no longer wielding a claw hammer. Previously the design for 👷‍♂️ Man Construction Worker was displayed for the non-gender-specifying 👷 Construction Worker.

🍷 Wine Glass now has a smaller base and shorter stem, balanced out by a much larger bowl.

🥙 Stuffed Flatbread now features larger, more detailed savory contents, including red onion.

🥣 Bowl With Spoon has been emptied of its milk and breakfast cereal.

💘 Heart With Arrow is now pink instead of red.^[5]

♿ Wheelchair Symbol has been updated to display the Accessible Icon Project style symbol.

👆 Input

To insert any new emoji on Android 10, users will need to ensure their release of Gboard is up to date.

For emojis that support a gender neutral option, this shows by default on the keyboard. Pressing-and-holding the emoji will show three rows of options in this scenario.

Above: No need to choose a gender to send a 🤦 Face Palm in Android 10.

Emojis which only have one or two gender options will continue to function the same way as before. For the new options of people holding hands, these appear in an expanded panel which lists all the 15 or 25 skin tone variations.

Above: Expanded skin tone palette for emojis with mixed skin tone support.

📶 Release

Android 10.0 is out now for those with eligible devices, with rollout continuing over the coming months. The first batch of phones to get this update will be Google's own Pixel devices.

As with all Android releases, this will only reach the subset of devices whose carriers and/or device-makers support the latest software updates. Some apps will support new emojis, even on older Android versions, if the app supports Google's EmojiCompat library.

A reminder: these updates do not apply to those with Samsung devices. Samsung has its own emoji set which is updated on a separate schedule to Google's Android emoji updates. Apps on Android such as WhatsApp, Twitter, and Facebook also use their own custom emoji implementations.

• Every emoji in Android 10
• All new Android 10 emojis
• All changed Android 10 emojis

New on Emojipedia today is a listing for the open source emoji project OpenMoji.

This set of 3,180 images covers every emoji approved as part of Emoji 12.0, and is available with a Creative Commons (Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International) license which makes the terms of use both flexible and clear.

This project uses a distinct style which sits somewhere between the outlined art of the Microsoft emoji font and perhaps in some ways reminscent of early Japanese emoji sets such as au by KDDI.

OpenMoji joins other emoji sets such as JoyPixels (which started life as free and open source project EmojiOne, and has since pivoted to a freemium model of licensing), Twemoji (the open source emoji library created by Twitter), and Google's own Noto Color Emoji (which, too, is open source).

First released in April 2018 supporting a subset of all emojis, the most recent update in May of 2019 added all remaining emojis.

Find out more about this project, and the team from Design University HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd behind it, on the OpenMoji website. Or browse the OpenMoji listings on Emojipedia.

With today's release of iOS 13 it's hard to miss one big new addition to the emoji keyboard. Alongside  the frequently used emojis are new options: a sweating 🐙 Octopus, a 👻 Ghost with heart eyes and a 💩 Pile of Poo blowing a kiss

This isn't the new emoji list for 2019; it's Apple's custom Memoji stickers in their new system-wide home: the emoji keyboard.

Given the prominent location and emoji-like qualities, you'd be forgiven for assuming these Memoji stickers work just like any other emoji does. That's not the case, and here's a quick guide.

What is Memoji

Memoji is what Apple calls the 3D humans you can dress up to look like you. Animoji is the term used for all the other 3D animated options like the dinosaur, owl, or shark.

Until now, Memoji and Animoji have primarily been for recording videos, with that functionality expanding in recent years to allow your head to be a tiger in FaceTime, or your Memoji persona to sit over your face in the Camera or Clips app.

What are Memoji Stickers

Memoji stickers are basically Bitmoji, Apple-style. While previous iOS versions allowed you to send your Memoji as a sticker, this required you to:

1. Make the face you want to send at your camera (awkward in public)
2. Make that face every time you want to send the same sticker

With Memoji stickers, a bunch of emoji-like expressions are provided for you. These allow any Animoji or Memoji to have heart-eyes, a swearing face, angry expression, or for the humans: a customized Memoji shrug, thumbs up, face-palm, etc.

Despite the name Memoji Stickers, this feature treats Memoji and Animoji characters the same way. Perhaps "Memoji and Animoji Stickers" wasn't catchy enough.

Where you can use Memoji Stickers

Memoji Stickers work anywhere images are supported. To be clear, these do not insert alongside text like a regular emoji can.

So that means you can use Memoji Stickers from the emoji keyboard:

• Attached to a tweet (not as part of tweet text)
• As part of an email (inline works, but it will be bigger than a regular emoji)
• In a WhatsApp message (as its own image asset, not part of text)
• In iMessage (both using the overlaying-sticker functionality from iOS 12, or as a separate image)

Where you can't use Memoji Stickers

These are literally images. They cleverly use the same 3D models as Apple's popular emoji font, so the effects all look like a natural extention to the emoji keyboard, but it's not the same technology.

While 'regular' emojis send a small code point for which emoji to display within a line of text, Memoji Stickers send the entire image. This is necessary as there really isn't any current technology for custom embedded images within plain text.

I wondered briefly during the WWDC Keynote in June if Apple had implemented some kind of custom text control to allow these to appear inline on iOS-only, but that's not the case here.

Memoji stickers won't work in your Twitter bio, web form, email subject, or other text-only field.

How to find Memoji Stickers

Apps don't specifically need to opt-in to Memoji Sticker support. iOS detects if images are supported, and uses this to determine when to show Memoji on the emoji keyboard.

To access Memoji stickers, tap the regular smiley button for the emoji keyboard. Memoji Stickers insert themselves in the Frequently Used section of the emoji keyboard (despite not necessarily being frequently used, or emojis).

The most recent Memoji Stickers are shown by default, with the elipsis […] button providing access to the full interface to customize your Memoji, or choose from all the Animoji options.

For text-only fields, the option to insert a Memoji sticker is not shown.

New Memoji Options

Also in iOS 13, Memoji adds new options to customize your avatar. We've compiled some of the new choices now available including makeup, AirPods, and new hairstyles.

New Emojis in iOS 13

New emojis for 2019 were previewed by Apple on World Emoji Day, with a release date of "Fall 2019". These are the additions approved as part of Emoji 12.0 including a guide dog, yawning face, waffle, flamingo, and mixed skin tone support for people holding hands.

There are no new emojis or emoji changes in iOS 13.0, so these will be coming in a future software update.

In past years, new emojis have arrived in iOS 12.1, iOS 11.1, and iOS 10.2. It's likely given the shorter release window of iOS 13.0 (and the new iPad OS 13.1 in a week), that new emojis may be held for iOS 13.2, or even 13.3.

Final thoughts

Here's the challenge: regular text-based emojis aren't scalable enough to cover every hairstyle, accessory or piercing.

Features like Memoji on iOS (and Bitmoji, Samsung AR Emoji, Gboard Minis, did I miss any?) fill the gap of sharing an avatar that looks like you — or anyone — with a variety of emotions available. Throw in mixing Animoji with emoji tears or hearts and you get somewhat of the way toward the popularity of Emoji Mashup Bot.

Apple using the same 3D models for both the emoji keyboard any Memoji/Animoji allows Memoji Stickers to look right at home on the emoji keyboard. They look great, and are good fun. Those who don't have an emoji that looks like them will especially appreciate the new options available.

The challenge for the Memoji Stickers feature is that users will see these on the emoji keyboard and expect them to work like any normal emoji does; which they do not.

Given the ongoing popularity of other avatar-sticker apps, it's unlikely the lack of inline-text support will prevent Memoji Stickers being used, but it will almost certainly cause some initial confusion for new users.

Memoji Gallery

While we're here, you might be interested in what all the sticker options look like. Well here they are.

👽 Alien

🐻 Bear Face

🐗 Boar

🐱 Cat Face

🐔 Chicken

🐮 Cow Face

🐶 Dog Face

🐲 Dragon Face

🦊 Fox Face

👻 Ghost

🦒 Giraffe

🐨 Koala

🦁 Lion Face

🐵 Monkey Face

🐙 Octopus

🦉 Owl

🐼 Panda Face

🐷 Pig Face

💩 Pile of Poo

🐰 Rabbit Face

🤖 Robot Face

🦈 Shark

💀 Skull

🐯 Tiger Face

🦖 T-Rex

🦄 Unicorn Face

Coming swiftly after last week's iOS 13.0 release, Apple has today released iOS 13.1. While this update does not feature any new emojis or expand upon iOS 13.0's Memoji stickers, iOS 13.1 does feature an 'accuracy update' to a number of existing emojis.

Above: a selection of emojis with new designs in iOS 13.1.

Support for new 2019 emojis were previewed on World Emoji Day and announced given the announced "Fall 2019" release date, these will most likely appear in a future release such as iOS 13.2 or iOS 13.3.

A total of 24 emoji designs have been changed in iOS 13.1, amongst which there are gestures towards greater anatomical and historical accuracy.

🆙 Changed

The eyes of 😍 Smiling Face With Heart-Eyes now use the ❤️ Red Heart emoji design instead of a distinct heart design.^[1]

🐙 Octopus now has suckers on the underside of its front two arms.^[2]

🦑 Squid no longer (inaccurately) displays a siphon in the center of its face.

🦟 Mosquito now features a sixth leg, making the insect anatomically-correct.^[3]

🧩 Jigsaw piece has been changed from blue to green.^[4]

🧮 Abacus now has beads orientated vertically instead of horizontally for a more historically-accurate representation.

📶 Release

iOS 13.1 is out now for iPhone, and the same emoji updates are available as part of iPad OS 13.1 and coming soon to macOS 10.15 Catalina.

• Every emoji in iOS 13.1
• Changed in iOS 13.1
• iOS 13 Adds Memoji to Emoji Keyboard

After several months of quiet rollout, Facebook have confirmed that their latest emoji release is now accessible to the majority Facebook users.

This update includes support for Emoji 12.0, as well as a number of design changes to family, gesture and facial expression emojis.

Above: New emojis added to the latest version of Facebook's emoji set.

Facebook 4.0 includes all 230 new emojis approved in 2019, including 🥱 Yawning Face and 🦩 Flamingo as well as selection of emojis representing accessibility (e.g. 🦻 Ear With Hearing Aid), new color options for shapes (e.g. 🤎 Brown Heart), and various different combinations of people holding hands (e.g. 👩🏾‍🤝‍👩🏻 Women Holding Hands: Medium-Dark Skin Tone, Light Skin Tone).

61 of these new emojis are unique codepoints, while the remaining 169 are new recommended ZWJ sequences for the likes of skin tone and gender variation support.

Additionally, 474 emojis have updated designs as part of this release. All hand gestures have been given a glossier appearance, a notable number of facial expressions have been tweaked and all of the non-RGI family ZWJ sequences have been given an update to match the new family design released last year.

🆕 New

The first major set of additions amongst the 230 new emojis are 71 new emojis featuring people holding hands.

Constructed via different ZWJ sequence, these combine 👩 Woman, 👨 Man and 🤝 Handshake to permit each person to have a different skin tone.

In the past, Facebook has already permitted shared skin tones for any of these hand-holders, but this is the first time mixed skin tones are included.

Above: A selection of the new people holding hands emojis in Facebook 4.0.

Accessibility and representation of differently-abled people is the second of the major themes evident in Emoji 12.0. Additions in this category include objects such as 🦽 Manual Wheelchair and people emojis such as 👩‍🦯 Woman With Probing Cane and 🧏‍♀️ Deaf Woman.

Above: A selection of the new accessibility emojis in Facebook 4.0.

The last major theme within Emoji 12.0 is the addition of new colored shapes and hearts. A total of 14 new designs have been added to these categories, including 🤍 White Heart and 🟥 Red Square.

Above: A selection of the new shape options as they appear in Facebook 4.0.

All eight new animals^[1] are now available for Facebook users, including the accessibility-oriented 🦮 Guide Dog and 🐕‍🦺 Service Dog, as well as the much-requested 🦩 Flamingo.

Unlike most other vendors, Facebook's oyster emoji does not include a pearl.

Above: Eight new animal emojis in Facebook 4.0.

🧆 Falafel and 🧉 Maté are amongst the eight new food and drink emojis in this update. The 🧃 Beverage Box includes the 💯 Hundred Points symbol in its artwork for 100% Juice.

Above: New food and drink options in Facebook 4.0.

Other additions in Facebook 4.0 include 🤏 Pinching Hand, 🥻 Sari and 🩸 Drop of Blood.

Browse all new emojis in Facebook 4.0.

Above: A selection of other Emoji 12.0 designs as they appear in Facebook 4.0.

🆙 Changed

😀 Grinning Face has lost its clenched-teeth grin for an open-mouth smile, as per the design of other major emoji vendors.

😭 Loudly Crying Face has had its eyes inverted, perhaps in attempt to channel a greater sense of sadness.

😵 Dizzy Face now features 'X'-shaped eyes instead of spiral-shaped eyes. This emoji continues to be fragmented between the two design styles (X or spiral eyes) across major platforms.

🤮 Face Vomiting now has its eyes shut in discomfort instead of featuring an intense wide-eyed stare.^[2]

😠 Angry Face and 😡 Pouting Face now both display the same design - one in-keeping with other vendors' 😠 Angry Face design. However, in losing its red gradient 😡 Pouting Face is now notably inconsistent with the design of other vendors.^[3]

All hand and gesture emojis have been revised in Facebook 4.0. These have been given a glossier appearance more similar to the vendor's other human designs (👩 Woman, 🤹‍♂️ Man Juggling and 🤷 Person Shrugging, for example).

🤞 Crossed Fingers has been revised with a more glossy apperance and slightly modified finger placement.

🤙 Call Me Hand is now glossier and has had its protruding little finger slightly reduced in size.

✊ Raised Fist no longer displays a wrist below its the clenched palm and digits.

👑 Crown is now angled differently and features encrusted sapphires instead of purple gemstones.^[4]

🚱 Non-Potable Water has been corrected to display the standard cross-through-tap design, as opposed to indicating a ban on binning litter. This mix-up was first introduced in December of last year.

In version 2.2 of Facebook's emoji set, a series of 125 family emoji designs with skin tone modifier support were added.^[5]

These designs remained unchanged in previous updates but in version 4.0 these have been updated to feature greater detail in their clothes, hair and facial features. This family with a dark skin tone applied 👨🏿‍👩🏿‍👧🏿‍👧🏿 is shown here as an example.

📶 Release

Facebook 4.0 was released on August 14, 2019 and continues to roll out for users across the globe.

In the past year, Facebook expanded the reach of its emoji designs by also displaying these in the native iOS Facebook app. Previously, Facebook's own emoji designs only showed on Facebook for web and Android.

While these new emojis are now supported by Facebook, input is a different matter. Android users will require Android 10.0 or above to see the new choices on the emoji keyboard.

The Facebook website emoji picker hasn't yet been updated to include these new additions so desktop users will need an Emoji 12.0-compatible OS such as Microsoft Windows 10 May 2019 Update or the forthcoming macOS Catalia update expected from Apple later this year.

Above: Facebook supports the new 2019 emojis, but these aren't yet available in the website emoji picker interface.

An alternative for accessing these new emojis is to copy and paste from a browser, eg 🤍 White Heart.

Last month's update from Facebook now shows for a majority of users, with rollout continuing for all remaining users in the coming weeks and months.

• Browse every Facebook Emoji
• Facebook 4.0 New Emojis
• Facebook 4.0 Changed Emojis
• Facebook 3.0 Changelog from December 2018

iPhone users in Hong Kong have noticed a change in the latest version of iOS: the 🇹🇼 Flag for Taiwan emoji is missing.

Previously restricted on Chinese iOS devices, all other regions of the world have continued to enjoy access to all flags in the iOS emoji font, until now.

The change, first discovered by iOS Developer Hiraku Wang, means that users with an iOS device region set to Hong Kong will see one less flag on the emoji keyboard than if the region is set to anywhere else in the world (other than China mainland, which also hides this flag).

Notably, the emoji 🇹🇼 Flag: Taiwan is still supported by iOS in Hong Kong. As of iOS 13.1.2, released last week, this is now hidden from the emoji keyboard but remains available by other means.

Apple's Hong Kong approach differs from the complete ban on the emoji in China.

Any iPhone purchased in China, or purchased elsewhere with the region set to China mainland, replaces the flag of Taiwan with a missing character tofu (☒) so it cannot be used or displayed in any app, even via copy and paste.

In Hong Kong, this emoji still appears when present in a document or message, and can be inserted via copy and paste with no change to the display. It also remains an auto-suggest option when typing the phrase Taiwan.

As for the most obvious place to find it - the emoji keyboard - that's where this emoji has gone missing.

This new restriction applies to all iPhones purchased in Hong Kong, as well as international iPhones where the region is set to Hong Kong.

Emojipedia can confirm that this change also affects the built-in emoji picker in macOS 10.15 Catalina. As with iOS, macOS completely bans the Taiwan Flag emoji when the region is set to China, but only hides it from the emoji picker in Hong Kong.

Previous releases of macOS had no restriction on this flag for Hong Kong users.

Note: While Taiwan is officially named Republic of China (ROC), the name Taiwan is more common internationally, and reflected in the current name of this emoji as: 🇹🇼 Flag: Taiwan (previously 'Flag for Taiwan').

For simplicity, this article refers to Republic of China (ROC) as Taiwan; and People's Republic of China (PRC) as China (or China mainland as used in iOS region settings).

Emoji context

As with any Unicode character, vendors like Apple are free to hide or show any emoji on their platforms as they wish.

If a vendor chooses not to support an emoji, they can simply remove it from any emoji font they create, or an alternative is to support the emoji but hide it from obvious input.

Microsoft hides the middle finger emoji from the emoji picker on Windows, but still supports the emoji if you copy and paste it, or open a document including it. Apple supports code points for many gender-neutral emojis, but hides them from input on the emoji keyboard, as most of these duplicate the appearance of the woman or man variation on iOS.

Hiding an emoji from the emoji keyboard is somewhat of a half-way step between completely banning an emoji, and fully supporting it.

Global context

While all flags have potential to unite or divide, until recently the emoji keyboard has remained relatively separate from such matters.

In recent years China has stepped up efforts in pressuring global companies in how they refer to Taiwan. Apple isn't alone here.

PayPal shows a generic globe instead of the Taiwan flag in its region picker. No other country gets that treatment.

Airlines have been instructed to refer to Taiwan as "Taiwan China" if they wish to keep doing business in China. Some airlines thought they might get around this by listed cities only without reference to the country, but this wasn't deemed sufficient by China.

With protests ongoing in Hong Kong to uphold the freedoms granted under "one country, two systems", the gradual re-aligning of Hong Kong and China continues.

And so the next battle appears to be on the emoji keyboard.

Choices

We all have choices to make in this world, both as individuals, and individuals within larger companies.

What's difficult when it comes to global politics and a superpower like China is that the choices don't look great - no matter which way you look at them. While Apple has not made comment on this change, it seems entirely consistent that a decision such as this wouldn't have been made lightly.

Is this half-way step of hiding, but not removing, the flag of Taiwan in Hong Kong a compromise that is better than banning the emoji altogether? I'd say so.

What this means for the future of Hong Kong as a distinct region of China with its own laws is less certain, and a topic much larger than the emoji keyboard. Perhaps Microsoft was onto something when they decided not to support any country flags in Windows.

Workarounds

Using the emoji 🇹🇼 Flag: Taiwan remains possible on Hong Kong-model iPhones via the following methods:

• Type "Taiwan" and choose 🇹🇼 from the auto-suggest list of options
• Copy and paste 🇹🇼 from the web
• Install a third party keyboard such as Gboard

Originally planned for release in 2020, a number of new gender neutral emojis have been moved into a late-2019 update from the Unicode Consortium, following support from 'at least two' major vendors.

The creation of Emoji 12.1 means an additional 168 emojis are on the way, on top of the 230 emojis already approved earlier in 2019. While Emoji 12.1 is not out yet, the announcement that it has been accepted will be sufficient for any vendors wishing to support these new additions to do so.

What's New

In total, 23 new gender-neutral emojis have been added to the mix. These include a gender-neutral fire fighter, astronaut, person in wheelchair, judge, and more. With skin-tone support included, the tally equals 138 additions.

Proposed by Google's Jennifer Daniel and the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee in April 2019, this set means the majority of humans on the emoji keyboard will be able to display as gender-neutral by default, unless or a woman or man variation is chosen by the user.

The release of Emoji Version 12.1 data files in 2019 as recommended in Section 1 of L2/19-363 was accepted during #UTC161, which results in more gender-inclusive forms, and more skin-tone options → https://t.co/JQzitOXxPK pic.twitter.com/OtSRlwfINB

— The Unicode Consortium (@unicode) October 9, 2019

Back in September, Google made the first step here in switching the display of any emoji which doesn't specify a gender to have a gender-inclusive design. This worked well for many emojis which have a 'base' (genderless) code point in additon to options for women or men. However due to the way many ZWJ Sequences are created within Unicode, many need additional sequences to provide a neutral option. This is what the Emoji 12.1 update aims to provide.

Separately, 30 new variations of people, women or men holding hands will form part of Emoji 12.1. Earlier this year, Emoji 12.0 added options for mixed skin tone support for any of the people holding hands. One part of this implementation determined that it was unnecessary, for example, to support both 👩🏿+ 👩🏻 as well as 👩🏻 + 👩🏿 when holding hands.

Apple, in its submission to Unicode, makes the case that the left and right person in each couple on iOS aren't identical:

“For user-interface consistency, Apple designers would like to allow the same skin-tone combinations for the differently drawn people in the same-gender couples that are available for the different-gender couple (that is, to support both Fitzgerald-3 on the left and Fitzgerald-5 on the right, as well as the reverse, for the same-gender couples).”

Above: Apple notes that the same-gender couples have different design features on left and right. Image: Apple.

The result of this change will mean that each of the hand-holding person-person, woman-woman, man-man, and woman-man will have 25 skin tone combinations. Emoji 12.0 listed 25 combinations for woman-man, but only 15 for the same-gender couples.

Vendor support

The Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) meeting has been taking place this week at Apple^[1] and the list of recommendations from the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee notes that 'at least two major vendors' plan to include the emoji sequences that will form Emoji 12.1.

The specific vendors are not named in the document. Given that Emoji 13.0 is slated for completion by March 2020, it's reasonable to expect that some vendors would begin supporting Emoji 12.1 by the end of 2019.

Today's latest iOS beta — iOS 13.2 beta 2 — is the first to include new emojis previewed by Apple in July of this year.

Additions include accessibility emojis such as people in wheelchairs or with a hearing aid, a flamingo, waffle, and skin tone support for people holding hands.

Shown for the first time today are Apple's otter emoji, ringed planet, beverage box, and pinching hand emojis, amongst others.

These were approved as part of the same Emoji 12.0 update from Unicode earlier this year, but were not included in Apple's World Emoji Day preview.

First Look

One of the most-discussed new emojis approved in 2019 has been the 🤏 Pinching Hand, which looks like this in the latest iOS beta:

Also coming to iOS 13.2 and available now in the latest developer beta is the 🦦 Otter.

The 🪐 Ringed Planet emoji which mostly resembles Saturn, at least in our solar system, will have at least one prominent fan when released in October or November this year.

Of all the new accessibility emojis proposed by Apple in 2018, one has changed appearance from the proposal stage to this beta: the service dog emoji. The new emoji is less likely to be mixed up with the also-new guide dog emoji.

Holding Hands

For the first time on iOS, options are available to select a combination of skin tones for any of:

• 👫 Woman and Man Holding Hands
• 👭 Women Holding Hands
• 👬 Men Holding Hands

This uses a brand new type of interface where the skin tones are selected for the left and right people one at a time. A future-looking style of menu which could be used to support skin tones within families in future.

Missing from this release is the an option to add gender inclusive people holding hands and the various matching skin tone options from the emoji keyboard.

With the recent announcement of Emoji 12.1 from the Unicode Consortium which primarily adds new gender neutral sequences, it seems possible that Apple may hold off on gender neutral support until the publication of Emoji 12.1 later this year.

The gender inclusive people holding hands are supported in the emoji font, but not shown on the keyboard in this beta release.

Oddly, these gender inclusive people display in all-white clothing. This has been used as a neutral color in the past on emojis like the selfie. The shade works fine on the t-shirt, but looks somewhat out of place when paired with white trousers - especially when next to the colorful clothing of the women and men. Perhaps this will change prior to a final release.

Given Apple is one of the vendors requesting additional skin tone combinations for a gender inclusive couple holding hands, it seems unlikely these would not be added to the keyboard in a future update.

Gender Neutral

Another large change in this release is support for the barely-announced Emoji 12.1 updates which add a gender inclusive option to the majority of human emojis.

Earlier this year Google signalled a move to make use of existing emoji code points which didn't specify a gender, to give this a distinct appearance. Emoji 12.1 fleshes out this set by providing new gender neutral sequences for nearly all people in the emoji set. These are reflected in today's iOS 13.2 beta.

Now on the iOS emoji keyboard, a choice of three options is available: woman, person, or man.

Unlike other implementations, Apple's gender options are not contained within a submenu on the emoji keyboard, and are instead shown side by side on the top level.

This means a gender inclusive office worker, singer, vampire or merperson can now be sent, alongside the previous options available for women or men.

Release

iOS 13.2 beta 2 is available to iOS developers today, and will come to a public release in October or November 2019 as a free software update.

As with any beta software, designs may not be final and are subject to change.

For a specific list of the new emojis supported in iOS 13.2 beta 2, browse both:

• Emoji 12.0 (Feb 2019)
• Emoji 12.1 (Oct 2019)

See also: iOS 13.1 Emoji Changelog for a number of recent emoji corrections in iOS.

Today Apple has released iOS 13.2, introducing the likes of a white heart, yawning face and flamingo to the emoji keyboard.

A more diverse keyboard adds options such as people holding hands with a mix of skin tones, people in wheelchairs, with a hearing aid or cane.

Many of these designs were first previewed earlier this year in celebration of World Emoji Day, and were made available to iOS beta testers earlier this month.

Above: All 398 new emojis in iOS 13.2. Image: Apple designs / Emojipedia composite.^[1]

iOS 13.2 introduces a total of 398 new emoji designs to Apple devices: 230 from Emoji 12.0 and 168 from Emoji 12.1. This makes Apple the first emoji vendor to implement the recommendations of Emoji 12.1 - less than a month since it was first announced.

Of the 398 new emoji designs, 61 are for newly designated codepoints that were added to Unicode 12 back in March. The remaining 337 are new zero-width-joiner (ZWJ) sequences.

In addition to the large number of new emojis, iOS 13.2 also updates a considerable number of previously-available designs.

Above: all of the emojis redesigned in iOS 13.2.

A total of 265 designs have been modified, with 255 of these changes being made in the name of presenting people in a more gender neutral fashion. These changes make Apple's designs more consistent with how the Unicode Consortium defines person-focused emojis that do not specifically cite a gender, and come after similar updates by Google and JoyPixels in recent months.

Combined with the gender neutral designs introduced in Emoji 12.0 and Emoji 12.1, iOS 13.2 features a grand total of 457 new gender neutral emoji designs.

Above: a selection of new gender neutral designs introduced in iOS 13.2 for both new and previously-released emojis. Woman and Man variants are displayed at 33% opacity for ease of comparison.

📲 iOS 13.2 is out now with these 398 new emojis https://t.co/mYK0uXJ8t1 pic.twitter.com/eGwIH7g8ip

— Emojipedia 📙 (@Emojipedia) October 28, 2019

🆕 New

iOS 13.2 features a large selection of new emojis featuring people holding hands. These are constructed via different ZWJ sequence combinations of 👩 Woman, 👨 Man and 🤝 Handshake alongside any desired skin tone modifer combination.^[2]

Above: A selection of the new people holding hands emojis in iOS 13.2.

As noted in our discussion of the iOS 13.2 beta earlier this month, the selection process for these new emojis utilises a brand new type of interface where the skin tones are selected for the left and right people one at a time.

📱👆New emoji picker in iOS 13.2 for selecting multiple skin tones in a single emoji. A clean implementation which will scale well to 🤝👩‍❤️‍👨👩‍❤️‍👩👨‍❤️‍👨👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨👨‍👩‍👦👨‍👩‍👧👨‍👩‍👧‍👦👨‍👩‍👦‍👦👨‍👩‍👧‍👧👩‍👩‍👦👩‍👩‍👧👩‍👩‍👧‍👦👩‍👩‍👦‍👦👩‍👩‍👧‍👧👨‍👨‍👧👨‍👨‍👧👨‍👨‍👧‍👦👨‍👨‍👦‍👦👨‍👨‍👧‍👧👩‍👦👩‍👧👩‍👧‍👦👩‍👦‍👦👩‍👧‍👧👨‍👦👨‍👧👨‍👧‍👦👨‍👦‍👦 in future pic.twitter.com/KqJZGFuZFH

— Jeremy Burge (@jeremyburge) October 10, 2019

Options to mix and match two women, two men, or a woman and man are available, each which can have any skin tones.^[1:1]

A new combination which shows people holding hands without a specific gender is supported, but not shown on the emoji keyboard in this release, for some reason.

The gender inclusive emoji is created by combining two of the 🧑 Person emojis (with both people clad in light grey). It's also not possible to combine 🧑 Person with either 👩 Woman or 👨 Man, which is consistent with the Emoji 12.0 and Emoji 12.1 lists from Unicode.

Above: All combinations of people holding hands in iOS 13.2. Image: Apple / Emojipedia composite.

iOS 13.2 also expands gender neutral representation across the board, with Emoij 12.1 expanding the recommended list of emojis to include gender neutral sequences for hair types (such as redheads or curly hair) as well as professions like the judge or office worker.

Above: a selection of the new gender neutral profession-focused emojis as they appear in iOS 13.2.

Most of these new gender neutral emojis are created by combining the 🧑 Person emoji with a relevant other emoji via a ZWJ sequence.^[3]

There are also 67 new accessibility-focused emojis in iOS 13.2, based on a proposal originally made by Apple in March of 2018.

Above: A selection of the new accessibility-focused emojis available in iOS 13.2.

The options amongst the colored hearts, squares and circles have also been expanded, meaning that each of these shapes now have consistent options for a red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black and brown variant.

Above: A selection of the new shape options as they appear in iOS 13.2.

There have been eight^[4] new food emojis added in iOS 13.2, including 🧆 Falafel and 🧉 Maté.

There are also eight^[4:1] new animal emojis, including a meme-echoing 🦧 Orangutan.

Above: the eight^[4:2] new animal emoji designs in iOS 13.2.

Notably, the Apple 🦪 Oyster does not feature a pearl. This is similar to Facebook's recently released design, but differs from that of all other major vendors.

An additional 64 new emojis have been introduced in iOS 13.2 across all other emoji categories. These include 🥱 Yawning Face, a 🪔 Diya Lamp, a 🩸 Drop of Blood originally proposed to enable discussion of menstruation, and the controversial 🤏 Pinching Hand. The full list of new designs can be viewed here.

🆙 Changes

265 previously-released emojis have updated designs in iOS 13.2.

Many of the redesigns in iOS 13.2 involve updated the 'base' emoji for any given option (such as vampire or police officer) to have a distinct gender-ambiguous appearance. Previously these tended to simply display with a duplicate of the women or man variation.

As well as having a new gender neutral facial structure, 👱 Person: Blond Hair now has realistic blond hair, as opposed to a skin-tone-matching yellow.

💇 Person Getting Haircut is no longer shown a 💇‍♀️ Woman Getting Haircut, and has had their scissors repositioned.

💆 Person Getting Massage now appears distinct from 💆‍♀️ Woman Getting Massage.

👳 Person Wearing Turban has a new facial structure, different eyebrow shape and no longer features the yellow beard of 👳‍♂️ Man Wearing Turban.

🏃 Person Running is now wearing a short-sleeved grey t-shirt and grey shorts, as per the gender neutral color palette selecting by Apple.

👮 Police Officer has a more neutral facial structure and hair, including the removal of 👮‍♂️ Man Police Officer's moustache.

🕵️ Detective no longer has a moustache and has swapped their red tie for black. You can also see their jacket's collar and shoulder through their magnifying glass.

The 👯 People With Bunny Ears now have a more neutral body type, thinner straps on their vests, and different shoes.

🧝 Elf has much shorter hair, as well as a distinct tunic and ornate headband.

🧚 Fairy now has green hair, a vest, and a less billowing skirt.

🧞 Genie is now purple instead of blue, is wearing a vest, and does not have either a ponytail or beard.

🧜 Merperson has longer hair and now has their torso covered.

🧛 Vampire has lost their bangs and has slightly slimmer fangs as well no longer wearing lipstick and wearing a grey top under their jacket instead of fuchsia.

🧟 Zombie has a fuller head of hair, larger eyes and a slightly smaller mouth than the previous 🧟‍♂️ Man Zombie design.

🦸 Superhero has shorter hair, slightly broader shoulders and is no longer wearing lipstick.

The 💏 Kiss emoji now features two gender neutral people instead of a man and a woman.

The 💑 Couple With Heart now displays two gender neutral people wearing grey instead of a woman in purple and a man in blue.

The two adults and one child of the 👪 Family emoji are now all wearing grey and share a gender-neutral facial design with 🧑 Person and 🧒 Child respectively.

👂 Ear has been designed to appear more like the ear shown in the new 🦻 Ear With Hearing Aid emoji.

The 🇲🇾 Flag of Malaysia now correctly displays a red stripe underneath the blue canton bearing the crescent and 14-point star.

📶 Release

These emoji updates are included as part of iOS 13.2 which is available now for iOS users as a free software update.

The same emoji support is available in iPad OS 13.2, macOS Catalina 10.15.1, watchOS 6.1, and tvOS 13.2.

• Every new emoji in iOS 13.2
• Every changed emoji in iOS 13.2
• Every Apple emoji design
• iOS 13.1 Emoji Changelog

One new emoji added in 2019 was quickly deemed to represent a small penis, but it's so much more than that.

In March 2019 the Unicode Consortium released over 60 new emoji code points as part of Unicode 12.0. This update featured a wide-ranging new set of emojis including flamingo, ringed planet, and ice cube. Among these is one lone disembodied hand: 🤏 Pinching Hand.

The different designs of 🤏 Pinching Hand form an interesting study in what various platforms deemed important about this gesture. In half the designs the fingers pinch toward the left, and in the other half they pinch toward the right. On all platforms but Microsoft, the index finger and thumb are close but not touching and the spaces between these fingers varies from pea- to pistachio-sized.

OpenMoji, an open source emoji project, has the middle, ring, and pinky fingers fanned out, almost like an 👌 OK Hand, but with the index finger and thumb not touching. Is it important where the fingers are positioned? Could that change the meaning of this gesture?

Looking at the designs across platforms, it could be argued that there’s a slight change to the meaning if there’s a pea-sized space between the index finger and thumb versus a pistachio-sized space. The latter would represent a slightly bigger thing. It might not make as significant of a difference when you shrink it down to emoji size, though.

The direction the pinching fingers face might also impact the way users on different platforms position this emoji in the context of other emojis. If you wanted to indicate that something is tiny on an Apple device, you might put an emoji to represent that tiny thing to the left of 🤏 Pinching Hand. On Twitter, it would make more sense for these emojis to be swapped. This could cause some confusion for friends communicating across platforms.

Bodo Winter, a lecturer in Cognitive Linguistics at the University of Birmingham, studies this exact gesture in non-emoji form. Specifically he researches the meaning of the pinching hand as used in TV news. By studying this gesture, he and his colleagues gain insight into the way people communicate ideas by making signals that resemble those ideas.

The pinching gesture echoes the real-world action of picking up something tiny. Winter explained:

“People actually put their index finger and thumb closer together if they want to grasp a small object, and the pinch gesture is generally seen as mimicking this actual practical action.”

He recently took a look at the proposal for this newly approved emoji. “What I particularly like,” Winter said, “is that the proposers not only talk about the 'pinching' gesture indicating a small size, but also a small quantity.”

In addition to small size and small quantity, Winter brought up a third meaning, this one more abstract. In some cases, the pinch gesture is used to indicate precision. “Speakers can use the pinch if they want to make a precise point about a topic, or if they want to appear as somebody who is commonly making precise statements,” he said. This is why you often see politicians making this sort of gesture. A 2011 paper by Michael Lempert focuses on Barack Obama’s use of this gesture in debates between 2004 and 2008 to indicate that a “sharp, effective point” is being made.

As you speak or think about what you want to say, you often subconsciously make these sorts of gestures. Lauren Gawne, a research fellow at La Trobe University and co-host of the popular linguistics podcast Lingthusiasm, explained that “some of the gestures you make depict how you're putting what you're saying together.” Gawne mentioned other examples beyond the pinching gesture: “When you're refusing or disagreeing you might wipe your hand away from yourself, [and] when you're asking a question your palms might be turned up.”

It’s relatively common for a single emoji to access multiple meanings, and this is certainly true of emojis that represent IRL hand gestures that are already used in several different contexts like 🤏 Pinching Hand. Gretchen McCulloch, internet linguist and author of Because Internet (and other co-host of Lingthusiasm), thinks pinching hand will play out similarly to another hand gesture emoji: 🙏 Folded Hands. “There were several possible meanings—thank you, prayer hands, high five—in competition with each other at first, so it’ll be interesting to see which of these possible meanings for the pinching hand gesture ends up becoming most popular in the long run,” she said. For further reading on this topic, see Gawne and McCulloch's 2019 paper "Emoji as Digital Gestures" in the journal Language@Internet, in which they break down different categories of emojis and place them in the framework of gesture linguistics.

When Unicode first announced the new emojis for 2019, several publications noted a very specific use case for 🤏 Pinching Hand. “There’s A New Emoji that People Think May Change Sexting Forever,” a BuzzFeed headline boasts. The article later names this emoji “tiny dick gesture.” Vice and Elle dub it the “small dick emoji,” and a Mashable article states “it totally symbolizes a small penis.” Nylon calls it “a perfect response to unsolicited dick pics.”

While this is a very real way people might use the pinching gesture in both the physical world and in the emoji world, this societal obsession with penis size can be harmful. Masculinity is not defined by penis size, or even having a penis at all in the case of many trans men or nonbinary individuals. For some, replying to a dick pic with 🤏 Pinching Hand is a tongue-in-cheek response, completely self-aware of the philosophies being turned upside down. Others might use it as stock comeback without thinking too much about the cultural implications of “size matters.” This is all something to keep in mind when sending 🤏 Pinching Hand, or any emoji, to mean “small dick.”

Another emoji hand gesture to consider when discussing 🤏 Pinching Hand is 👌 OK Hand. Winter notes that sometimes the pinching gesture and the ok gesture are used in overlapping ways, but not always. 👌 OK Hand has “much more varied meanings,” which are culturally dependent. He explained: “In the West, this sign generally means 'ok,' but depending on cultural context, it can mean anything from 'perfection' (Italy) over to 'zero' (France). In many cultures, the ring type gesture can also be offensive, referring to the anus.” While the meanings of gestures are often cross cultural, they are by no means universal. This is true of both actual physical hands and emoji representations of hands.

Where their senses intersect, the pinching and ok hand gestures can be used to evoke a range of other meanings from chef’s kiss, an expression of extreme approval (which can be represented though emoji as 😗👌—see Italian sense of ‘perfection’) to the “smallest violin,” in which someone listening to a sob story mockingly offers an accompaniment on a violin so tiny, it must be played by pinching two fingers together (finger positions can vary).

One particularly memorable image of this pinching gesture, is what seems like every single promotional photo Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder and CEO of the biotech company Theranos. In these photos she wears a black turtleneck and pinches a tiny vile of blood. Unbelievable power in such a tiny package, she seems to indicate with her hand. And, yes, it is literally unbelievable because, in fact, it is not to be believed. Tavi Gevinson famously posted a video of herself doing a Holmes impression, hand in that same gesture. Holmes also inspired countless 2019 Halloween costumes (she was blamed for a black turtleneck shortage). The hand gesture was a necessary part of the costume.

A search for “Elizabeth Holmes” and 👌 OK Hand on Twitter shows that people are regularly associating this particular hand gesture in emoji form with Holmes. Maybe people will start using the pinching hand gesture in a similar way, but it seems unlikely. The fact that the gesture with the fingers fanned out means “ok” adds a vital layer of irony that most designs for 🤏 Pinching Hand don’t access.

How 🤏 Pinching Hand will actually be used remains to be seen. McCulloch has her predictions, though:

“My guess is that the literal pinch or small size/quantity meanings will be more popular than the precise amount, but it’ll be interesting to look at the data in a few years!”

Now that 🤏 Pinching Hand is out there, new uses of it may emerge that we never even imagined.

When it comes to emojis and punctuation, the rules are still up in the air. In absence of any formal conventions, emojis’ place alongside traditional punctuation often comes down to a rubric of subjective user intuition.

Additionally emojis are being used as punctuation in a variety of ways, sometimes to mimic actual punctuation marks, sometimes to echo a gesture, and sometimes to evoke shared cultural knowledge.

Emojis with Punctuation

Before diving into how emojis interact with existing punctuation, it’s important to establish that punctuation, like the language it frames, is a living, evolving thing.

Rules of punctuation are not always as fixed or straightforward as they might seem. Periods are perhaps the most basic punctuation mark and the first piece of punctuation a young child learns, but even their use has been in flux over the last decade.

In the realm of text messages and social media, the role of the period has been up for debate in recent years. In a text message, pressing “send” often indicates a stop in a thought, or at the very least, a physical pause in typing. For some people this makes periods obsolete in this informal context.

Linguist and emoji expert Tyler Schnoebelen has been studying online communication for over a decade. He explained that in addition to this act of pressing “send,” there’s also a visual cue to suggest the end of a transmission: “Text messages and tweets already have a terminus, which is just the fact that they exist in little ‘bubbles.’” For these reasons, when a period is used, it can sometimes feel angry. Thinkpieces on the passive-aggressive period have been coming out since as early as 2013.

Throwing emojis into the mix doesn’t simplify matters. If an emoji falls at the end of a sentence, do you need to use any terminal punctuation? Does the emoji act as enough of a visual stopping point, or is classic punctuation required? If you’re using quotation marks, does an emoji go inside or outside them?

Gretchen McCulloch asked these questions in a 2015 Mental Floss piece, so I won’t go into this in too much depth here. She concludes that it’s about personal style preference and avoiding a cluster of characters that look weird or might cause confusion.

As with the case of the dropped period in text messaging and social media posts where an “end of thought” is implied, including unnecessary punctuation can appear overly formal, and that can come across as stiffness or sometimes passive aggression.

You’re far more likely to see emojis used in short-form informal contexts where traditional punctuation conventions are playfully defenestrated in the name of creative expression than in formal contexts where punctuation rules are more standardized and revered.

What feels right, what feels wrong, what looks—for lack of a better word—dorky. These are important factors in the evolving conventions of how emojis interact with existing punctuation. As time passes, perhaps a set of rules will become understood by emoji users. Perhaps they will even become formalized. We’re not there yet.

Emojis as Punctuation

Emojis used as punctuation can be split up into two subgroups based on positioning around other non-emoji text: emojis surrounding and framing non-emoji text, and emojis as terminal punctuation.

In the category of emojis as punctuation framing non-emoji text is the ✌️Victory Hand used on either side of a word or string of words as air quotes. The first time I noticed this was on writer and commentator Jemele Hill’s Twitter account.

Hill could have used non-emoji quotation marks, but she didn’t. The choice to use emojis here is intentional. The inherently playful nature of emoji adds a layer of irony to her tweets. Her mocking tone and sense of humor shine through in this choice. You can feel her rolling her eyes when you read her tweets, and that might have been lost with your basic quotation marks. Additionally air quotes are functionally different than quotation marks because they represent a speech act combined with finger gesturing. Quotation marks in written text don’t tend to directly evoke the combination of someone physically speaking and gesturing in this way.

Related to the use of emojis as air quotes are emojis as emphasis. You see this when people surround words with attention grabbing emojis like 🚨 Police Car Light or ⚠️ Warning, or with pretty emojis like ✨ Sparkles or various flowers.

⚠️ Flash Flood Watch in Effect⚠️

🚨SALE🚨

I had the ✨best✨ time!!!

🌸Spring🌸 is here

It could be argued that this is more emojis as formatting than emojis as punctuation, but the lines are blurred. Air quotes, too, can be used for emphasis, as much as pedants hate this use. Growing up, my brother worked at a store called Pet Supplies “Plus,” and we always wondered what exactly the quotes were trying to tell us.

Finally, there’s emojis as terminal punctuation. It’s impossible to talk about this topic without mentioning Cher.

Any casual follower of Cher’s Twitter account might notice that she often ends sentences with emojis that directly correspond with traditional punctuation. ⁉️ Exclamation Question Mark and ‼️ Double Exclamation Mark are among her favorites.

Other traditional forms of punctuation which have direct emoji alternatives include ❗ Exclamation Mark, ❓ Question Mark, ❔ White Question Mark, and ❕ White Exclamation Mark. In the half-way ground, we have a heart that sits above a red circle to create an exclamation mark:❣️ Heart Exclamation.

Schnoebelen, who is more than a casual follower of Cher, has discussed her emoji use on Twitter in his piece Cher is the Queen of Emoji even if she isn’t. Schnoebelen explained that the “big and loud” way Cher uses emojis is a reflection of her personality:

“I think the big red emoji punctuation follow a kind of bold style that she's known for not just on Twitter but in her outfits and the general persona.”

He noted that “even before she started using emoji, Cher was using a lot of exclamation points and ALL CAPS,” so this attention-grabbing use of emojis as punctuation is in line with Cher’s overall style.

Another of Cher’s favorite ways to end thoughts on social media is with 💋 Kiss Mark. The following tweet ends with a kiss, but pay attention to the other emoji punctuation she uses too. Note that even Cher is not internally consistent in how her emojis interact with traditional punctuation. Sometimes she drops the traditional punctuation, and other times she preserves it.

The 💋 Kiss Mark in this final position nods to the real-world action of sealing a message with a kiss. While Cher uses the kiss as terminal punctuation in a very sincere way above, this sign off can sometimes carry a more snarky or sassy tone, similar to ending a message with 💅 Nail Polish or 💁 Person Tipping Hand.

Of course there are multiple ways to seal messages with kisses with emojis. Schnoebelen favors the smiley blowing a kiss. “I certainly do this—I very commonly end messages to boyfriends with 😘” he said.

In this same vein of emojis that operate as terminal punctuation is 🤔 Thinking Face. It can be used alongside a question mark to indicate skepticism, or even to replace a question mark, since it can make the question mark redundant.

💫 Dizzy, which really looks more like a shooting star, can be used to end messages to evoke The More You Know, a popular meme based on a series of public service announcements aired in the US starting in 1989.

The meme iterations of The More You Know contain a fun fact (sometimes they are actually factual, but often not) and then end with a GIF from the public service announcement. As the meme became more and more popular, it was possible to leave off the gif and just use the shooting star emoji in its place to the same effect. Like 🤔 Thinking Face, this can be used to end a thought with or without traditional punctuation.

While these uses could be classified as terminal punctuation, there are other possible interpretations. Perhaps emojis are simply being used as tone markers in these contexts. “I think it's hard to disentangle tone and punctuation,” Schnoebelen said. “If you try to pull them apart it's something like punctuation is structuring and tone is expressing how the writer feels about the message and/or recipient.” It could simply be that emoji tone markers tend to come at the end of a thought in the exact same place where traditional punctuation would fall.

But there’s something very punctuation-like going on with these emojis that feels distinct from tone. Tone is a filter over the whole message, whereas these emojis hold a strong sense of “thought ending.”

“I think there's a lot to the hypothesis that one of the main ways of using emoji is to indicate a friendly way of saying ‘end transmission’ instead of just ending it,” Schnoebelen said. Emojis also give people, like Cher, a chance to show personality, emotion, and tone in a medium where it might otherwise be lost. Traditional punctuation can do this to some extent, and emojis can help further bridge that gap.

All 230 new emojis for 2019 were recently added to WhatsApp for Android, as part of the latest version of the popular messaging app.

In the fifth emoji update of 2019, WhatsApp 2.19.352 is the first release to support Emoji 12.0. This introduces new emojis such as the yawning face and white heart to Android WhatsApp users.

These are the same emojis added to Android in September 2019 and iOS in October 2019, but with WhatsApp's own glossy Apple-like designs.

Above: all 230 new emoji designs featured in WhatsApp 2.19.352. Image: WhatsApp designs / Emojipedia composite.

All 230 of new emoji designs introduced in WhatsApp 2.19.352 are those approved by Unicode back in early March of this year via Emoji 12.0.

Many of these^[1] new and changed emoji designs for Android users were first previewed in the WhatsApp 2.19.315 beta, released to testers in early November.

🆕 New

WhatsApp 2.19.352 features all 230 new emojis from Emoji 12.0, introducing several new subjects of emoji while also bolstering emoji numbers in popular categories such as animals and food.

71 of the new 2019 emojis depict two people holding hands with different skin tone options for each person.

There are four different possible combinations: a 👩 Woman and 👨 Man^[2], two 👩 Woman emojis, two 👨 Man emojis, or two gender neutral 🧑 Person emojis.

Above: A selection of the new people holding hands emojis in WhatsApp 2.19.352, featuring variants of 👫 Woman and Man Holding Hands, 👭 Women Holding Hands, 👬 Men Holding Hands, and 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People Holding Hands in descending order.

It appears that only single skin-tone modifer options (e.g. 👭🏽 Women Holding Hands: Medium Skin Tone) are available to select from the Keybooard UI in the Android app. As well as this, the gender neutral 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People Holding Hands appears to be completely absent from the keyboard.

Above: Only a shared skin tone options are shown in the WhatsApp emoji keyboard, even though mixed skin tones are supported. Also missing-but-supported: gender inclusive people holding hands.

These multi-skin tone and gender neutral options do work correctly^[2:1] when the emoji is copied from the web or an alternative keyboard, but at least for the current release there is no way to select these within the app's own emoji picker.

Another major theme within Emoji 12.0 is representation of differently-abled people and accessibility-oriented devices.

All of the the emojis that display either a person (e.g. 👨‍🦯 Man With Probing Cane) or a non-mechanical body part (🦻 Ear With Hearing Aid) support the various skin tone modifier options.

Above: a selection of the new accessibility-focused emojis featured in WhatsApp 2.19.352.

• 🦾 Mechanical Arm
• 🦿 Mechanical Leg
• 🦻 Ear With Hearing Aid
• 🧏 Deaf Person
• 🧏‍♂️ Deaf Man
• 🧏‍♀️ Deaf Woman
• 👨‍🦯 Man With Probing Cane
• 👩‍🦯 Woman With Probing Cane
• 👨‍🦼 Man in Motorized Wheelchair
• 👩‍🦼 Woman in Motorized Wheelchair
• 👨‍🦽 Man in Manual Wheelchair
• 👩‍🦽 Woman in Manual Wheelchair

There are also two accessibility-oriented designs amongst the eight new animal emojis: 🦮 Guide Dog and 🐕‍🦺 Service Dog.

Above: the new animal emojis in WhatsApp 2.19.352.

• 🦮 Guide Dog
• 🐕‍🦺 Service Dog
• 🦧 Orangutan
• 🦥 Sloth
• 🦦 Otter
• 🦨 Skunk
• 🦩 Flamingo
• 🦪 Oyster^[3]

Above: the new food and drink emojis as they appear in WhatsApp 2.19.352.

• 🧄 Garlic
• 🧅 Onion
• 🧇 Waffle
• 🧆 Falafel
• 🧈 Butter
• 🧃 Beverage Box
• 🧉 Maté
• 🧊 Ice Cube

Above: the new color-based shape emojis in WhatsApp 2.19.352.

• 🤎 Brown Heart
• 🤍 White Heart
• 🟠 Orange Circle
• 🟡 Yellow Circle
• 🟢 Green Circle
• 🟣 Purple Circle
• 🟤 Brown Circle
• 🟥 Red Square
• 🟧 Orange Square
• 🟨 Yellow Square
• 🟩 Green Square
• 🟦 Blue Square
• 🟪 Purple Square
• 🟫 Brown Square

🥱 Yawning Face and 🤏 Pinching Hand are two popular additions amongst the remaining 64 new emojis introduced in this update.

Above: a selection of the additional Emoji 12.0 designs featured in WhatsApp WhatsApp 2.19.352

Other new additions include 🪀 Yo-Yo, which in WhatsApp 2.19.352 features the WhatsApp logo in its design. Also of note is that the 🪒 Razor design is that of a straight razor: a notably divergent design compared to the safety razor of Apple and most other major vendors.^[4]

• 🥱 Yawning Face
• 🤏 Pinching Hand
• 🧍 Person Standing
• 🧍‍♂️ Man Standing
• 🧍‍♀️ Woman Standing
• 🧎 Person Kneeling
• 🧎‍♂️ Man Kneeling
• 🧎‍♀️ Woman Kneeling
• 🦺 Safety Vest
• 🥻 Sari
• 🩱 One-Piece Swimsuit
• 🩲 Briefs
• 🩳 Shorts
• 🩰 Ballet Shoes
• 🛕 Hindu Temple
• 🛺 Auto Rickshaw
• 🪂 Parachute
• 🪐 Ringed Planet
• 🤿 Diving Mask
• 🪀 Yo-Yo
• 🪁 Kite
• 🪕 Banjo
• 🪔 Diya Lamp
• 🩸 Drop of Blood
• 🪓 Axe
• 🩹 Adhesive Bandage
• 🩺 Stethoscope
• 🪑 Chair
• 🪒 Razor

🆙 Changes

Only three previously-available emoji designs have been modified in WhatsApp 2.19.352.

👭 Women Holding Hands now has additional shading on their clothing, and the woman on the right now has a distinct hair style.

👫 Woman and Man Holding Hands now has additional shading on their clothing, while the man is wearing different shoes.

👬 Men Holding Hands are wearing new shoes and the man on the right has a new haircut.

🙆 Not Included

This release does not include any of the additional gender-neutral options approved by Unicode in the latter part of 2019.

Given the relatively quick release of that update, these additional sequences for gender and skin tone options aren't likely to come to WhatsApp for Android until the first half of 2020.

WhatsApp for iOS users will still see these options if running iOS 13.2 or above.

📶 Release

These new emoji designs are now available for Android users when the app updates to WhatsApp 2.19.352 or above. For most users this will have taken place on or around December 4, 2019.

WhatsApp Web has not yet updated with the new emoji support, with this product generally seeing emoji updates in folowing two-three months after the mobile app is updated.

Users of iOS devices will continue to see native Apple emoji designs which are provided by the operating system.

• Browse every WhatsApp Emoji
• All new emojis in WhatsApp 2.19.352
• All changed emojis in WhatsApp 2.19.352
• WhatsApp 2.19.175 Emoji Changelog

As 2019 comes to a close, we here at Emojipedia have been reflecting on all the emoji updates that took place throughout the year.

We’ve seen long-request designs such as white heart and flamingo be introduced to all major vendors.

Gender neutral people were made the default appearance for many emojis starting on Android. A bunch of additional gender inclusive emojis also came to iOS in the past few months, and the world didn't collapse as a result.

So with all that in mind, what else happened in the world of emojis this year?

Two infamous new emojis added in 2019 were the 🥱 Yawning Face and the 🤏 Pinching Hand.

Above: the new 🥱 Yawning Face emoji as it appears across various vendors.

Above: the new 🤏 Pinching Hand emoji as it appears across various vendors when sent without a skin tone modifier.

A total of 25 emoji releases^[1] were added to Emojipedia throughout the year across 9 different active^[2] emoji vendors. Of these updates, 14 included the introduction of brand-new emojis from the Unicode Consortium's two official emoji recommendations this year^[3], as well as a couple of new emojis not yet recommended for general interchange (RGI) by Unicode.

The year's first major emoji update from Unicode, Emoji 12.0, was released by in March 2019. It recommended 230 new emojis, all of which can be seen in their Google designs in the image below.

Above: New Emoji 12.0 emojis added in Android 10 in September 2019. Image: Google designs / Emojipedia composite.

Following a proposal by Google in early March, Unicode also recommended another 168 new emojis in October 2019^[3:1]: Emoji 12.1.^[3:2]

These additional emojis provided a gender neutral option for existing profession and identity-focused people emojis (e.g. 🧑‍⚖️ Judge and 🧑‍🦰 Person: Red Hair), as well as expanding the skin tone combinations available for the holding hands emojis introduced in Emoji 12.0.

At the time of writing only Apple support Emoji 12.1, with Apple releasing both Emoji 12.0 and Emoji 12.1 updates simultaneously in October via iOS 13.2. Apple's designs for both updates are shown below.

Above: All 398 new emojis brought to iOS devices in 2019^[4]. Image: Apple designs / Emojipedia composite.

🆕🗓️ New In 2019

The release of the new Emoji 12.0 designs throughout the year enfolded as follows:

• 🐣 Twitter in early April via Twemoji 12.0
• 🌱 Microsoft in early May via May 2019 Update
• 🆕 OpenMoji in mid May via OpenMoji 12.0^[5]
• 🐛 JoyPixels in late June via JoyPixels 5.0
• 😎 Samsung in late August via Samsung One UI 1.5
• 🌴 Google in early September via Android 10.0
• 🍂 Facebook in late September via Facebook 4.0
• 🎃 Apple in late October via iOS 13.2
• 🎄 WhatsApp in early December via WhatsApp 2.19.352

Having already compared the 🥱 Yawning Face and 🤏 Pinching Hand, further highlights from Emoji 12.0 are shown below. First, the new 🤍 White Heart.^[6]

🦩 Flamingo had also been a popular request for a number of years.

The biggest new set of additions from early 2019's Emoji 12.0 was the introduction of various people holding hands with one another, such as the non-gender-specifying 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People Holding Hands emoji shown below.

71 of the 230 new emojis in Emoji 12.0 - roughly 31% - featured some combinations of one or two 👩 Woman emojis, one or two 👨 Man emojis, or two 🧑 Person emojis. All of the existing skin tone modifiers options are available for each of the people holding hands: for example, the 👩🏿‍🤝‍👩🏼 Women Holding Hands: Dark Skin Tone, Medium-Light Skin Tone emoji shown below shows one 👩 Woman modified by the 🏿 Dark Skin Tone and the other modified using the 🏼 Medium-Light Skin Tone.

Emoji 12.0 also featured a selection of new emojis intended to represent a selection of differently-abled people. One such new emojis is the 🦾 Mechanical Arm.

Others new accessibility-focused emojis include 🧏 Deaf Person, 🦻 Ear With Hearing Aid and 🦮 Guide Dog.

In the Animals & Nature category, the new 🦧 Orangutan has received a very positive response, though that may due to Apple's version resembling a certain meme.

🦦 Otter has also received a strong response for both its cuteness and its LGBTQ associations.

The new 🩸 Drop of Blood was initially proposed as a means of allowing discussing menstruation via emoji.

The creation process for 🩸 Drop of Blood was one of the focuses of the 2019 documentary film Picture Character alongside Emoji 5.0's 🧕 Woman With Headscarf and this year's 🧉 Mate, shown below.

🆕🔀 New 2019 Emoji Fragmentation

However, across vendors' implementation of Emoji 12.0 an old adversary has raised its head.

Emoji fragmentation is a term often used to describe when at least one fundamental attribute an emoji's design is notably different between vendors. While some emoji differences don't overtly change the meaning of what is being conveyed, others completely change what is attempting to be said.

Example of both a minor and major variation in emoji design can be seen in the new 🧎 Person Kneeling emoji.

The relatively minor difference seen across vendor's 🧎 Person Kneeling is the color of the person's top. While Google, Facebook, Twitter, and JoyPixels have all opted to use an orange attire for this gender neutral designs, each of the other vendors have used a different color (e.g. a light grey in the Apple design).

However, a potentially major fragmentation is that Google's 🧎 Person Kneeling is only kneeling on one knee. Since 2016 this posture has become associated with the U.S. national anthem protests : a connotation not present in any of the other vendor's designs, since all others are kneeling on both of their knees.

Other new instances of both major and minor design fragmentation from Emoji 12.0 are highlighted below.

The new 🦪 Oyster emoji has been largely categorised as a food emoji by vendors' emoji keyboards. However, many vendors have chosen to display a pearl on top of the creature's fleshy interior: indicating instead that it is a non-edible Pinctada genus, and therefore not technically a food. However, as the Apple, Facebook and JoyPixels 🦪 Oyster emojis lack the pearl, they can be considered an edible Ostreidae oyster.

The fruit juice contained within 🧃 Beverage Box is highly varied between vendors: apple, grape, orange, lemon, and a combination of pear, apple and cherry all appear.

The 🪒 Razor emoji alternates between a modern safety razor and a Sweeney Todd-esque straight razor.^[7]

🆕🔜 New But Not (Yet) RGI

Alongside the 398 new emojis recommended by Unicode in 2019, there were two emojis not yet RGI introduced by a number of vendors throughout 2019: the ⚧️ Transgender Symbol and the 🏳️‍⚧️ Transgender Flag.

While ⚧️ Transgender Symbol has had non-RGI support from Microsoft and Samsung since 2012 and 2013 respectively, it was also given an emoji version by both Twitter and WhatsApp this year alongside the 🏳️‍⚧️ Transgender Flag. Facebook also began to suppor the 🏳️‍⚧️ Transgender Flag as an emoji this year, although it does not feature an emoji version of the ⚧️ Transgender Symbol.

Both of these emojis are candidates for full emoji status in Emoji 13.0, which is currently being drafted.

🆙🧑 Gender Neutral Changes In 2019

By far the biggest change seen across various emoji vendors in 2019 was the introduction of gender neutral designs to many previously-released emojis.

Throughout the year Google, Apple, Twitter and Joypixels^[7:1] all introduced over 300 new gender neutral designs to their emoji design sets, following the declared intent of Google detailed in the "Using Gender Inclusive Designs" submission. 🤷 Person Shrugging, 🕵️ Detective, and 🧜 Merperson are shown as examples below.

Above: a selection of new gender neutral designs introduced for previously-released emojis as they appear in the Apple, Google, Twitter and JoyPixels sets.

When many earlier person-based emojis such as 👮 Police Officer and 💇 Person Getting Haircut were recommended by Unicode, they did not have a specified gender. Instead, Unicode recommended that:

“human-form emoji should normally be depicted in a gender-neutral way unless gender appearance is explicitly specified”

However, instead of adhering to this recommendation, most vendors opted to display human-form emojis with gender presentations: the 👮 Police Officer appearing as a man and 💇 Person Getting Haircut appearing as a woman.

After issues were raised relating to how emojis were depicting men and women, Emoji 4.0 introduced gender-specific versions of most person emojis, leading to the creation of the gender-specific 👮‍♂️ Man Police Officer and 👮‍♀️ Woman Police Officer. However, the non-gender-specific 👮 Police Officer emoji still retained its previous gender-specific appearance, continuing to reinforces stereotypes related to the "default" gender for certain roles and activities.

Above: the 👮 Police Officer as it appeared across vendors at the start of 2019.

In addition to this, when new human-form emojis such as 🧟 Zombie were recommended, vendors would inconsistently designate gender.

Above: the 🧟 Zombie as it appeared across vendors at the start of 2019.

Above: A comparison of several 👩 Woman, 👨 Man and non-gender-specifying emoji designs between Google's Android 9.0 (before) and Android 10 (after).

At the end of 2019, both 👮 Police Officer and 🧟 Zombie now appear as shown below.

Above: the 👮 Police Officer as it appeared across vendors near the close of 2019.

Above: the 🧟 Zombie emoji across vendors at the end of 2019.

While this wider representation for emoji users who do not identify with a specific gender identity, it does lead to further new instances of emoji fragmentation.

🆙🙆 Convergent & Divergent Changes In 2019

In early 2018 Emojipedia CEO^[8] Jeremy Burge mused about whether 2018 would go down as "the year of emoji convergence". This ultimately came to pass, with the growth of design convergence epitomised by the changing of the 🔫 Pistol emoji across all vendors to display a toy waterpistol instead of a legitimate firearm.

In 2019, this trend towards design greater convergence was best encapsulated by Samsung's historically divergent emojis undergoing a large-scale redesigns to be visually in-keeping with those of other vendors.

For example, this year Samsung updated its 👯‍♀️ Women With Bunny Ears emoji to display two women clad in black dresses and bunny ears, as opposed to a single woman wearing white bunny ears.

Additionally, Samsung's 🐘 Elephant also now appears as a much more realistic animal, losing the cartoon heart by its trunk.

Other examples of emoji design revisions being made in the name of design convergence are highlighted below.

Facebook's 😀 Grinning Face lost its clenched-teeth grin in favor of an open-mouth smile of other vendors.

Google updated 🤤 Drooling Face to have its eyes closed and mouth smiling.

Facebook's 🤮 Face Vomiting now has its eyes shut in discomfort instead of featuring an intense wide-eyed stare, rowing back a divergent change originally made in the Facebook 3.0 update.

Google changed the position of the sweat drop on their 😥 Sad but Relieved Face to better match the appearance of other vendors.

Samsung also updated its 🥰 Smiling Face With Hearts to displays three hearts floating around its face instead of four[8].

Windows's ☕ Hot Beverage is now a white cup on a matching saucer instead of a pale blue mug.

Despite the trend towards emoji design convergence seen throughout the last few years, 2019 still introduced some new instances of emoji fragmentation. An example in which both convergence and fragmentation occurred simultaneously can be found in Facebook's 4.0 update.

Following their September 2019 update, the 😠 Angry Face and 😡 Pouting Face now both display the same design - one in-keeping with other vendors' 😠 Angry Face design. However, in losing its red gradient 😡 Pouting Face is now notably inconsistent with the design of other vendors.

Above: the update to the 😠 Angry Face emoji introduced in Facebook 4.0., swapping gritted teeth for a more convergent frowning mouth.

Above: the new 😡 Pouting Face design in Facebook 4.0., which now diverges with the red-faced design of other vendors.

There were also some instances of fragmentation that were not widely addressed by vendors in 2019.

One such outstanding vein of continued fragmentation can be found in the implimentation of animal emojis. While where certain vendors display a full-bodied creature for some animals, other vendor's just display the animal's head. 🦍 Gorilla is shown as an example of this below.

However, perhaps the biggest outstanding instance of fragmentation can be found in the 😵 Dizzy Face emoji designs.

The inconsistent shape of the eyes in 😵 Dizzy Face (spirals or x-shaped) can lead to confusion between users as these two symbol types have different connotations: specifically, the x-shaped eyes are often used as an indication of unconsciousness or even death in the visual language of comics, cartoons, and emoticons.

🤔 Oddities In 2019

Despite the substantive changes seen across all active emoji sets in 2019, a couple of major cross-platform quirk remains within the Samsung emoji set. Since Samsung TouchWiz 7.1 in 2016, 🇺 Regional Indicator Symbol Letter U displays a capital "V" (instead of U) and 🇻 Regional Indicator Symbol Letter V displays a "U" (instead of V).

Above: 🇺 Regional Indicator Symbol Letter U and 🇻 Regional Indicator Symbol Letter V as they are displayed across a series of major vendors' emoji sets.

As regional indicator letters are not intended to be displayed in isolation (they are intended solely for the creation of flag emojis) this design mis-match isn't of major consequence to most users, but is an odd bug to last for so many years despite there being 7^[9] Samsung emoji updates since this oddity's introduction.

Additionally, the 👁️‍🗨️ Eye in Speech Bubble emoji remains absent in Samsung One UI 1.5, having been removed from Samsung's emoji set in 2018. This is of note considering that in February Samsung One re-introduced a selection of emoji previously made unavailable on Samsung devices in an August 2016 update: ✝️ Latin Cross, ☪️ Star and Crescent and ‼️ Double Exclamation Mark.

There was, however, an oddity from an update to Facebook's emoji set in December 2018 that was rectified in 2019.

The 🚱 Non-Potable Water emoji was corrected to display the standard cross-through-tap design, as opposed to indicating a ban on binning litter. This bizaare change echoed Windows' 2016 design for 🚯 No Littering, which instead of discouraging littering also appeared to condemn proper garage disposal.

🔮 Looking Ahead To 2020

As of December 2019 Apple currently supports the emojis added in Emoji 12.1.

It is expected that all major vendors will provide support to this emoji update in the first half of 2020. Google will likely be one of the next vendors to implement support, given that they have already previewed a selection of Emoji 12.1 mock-ups.

Above: a selection of Google's Emoji 12.1 designs, as previewed within their initial proposal document.

Also expected in Q1 of 2020 is the release of Emoji 13.0. While the list of new emojis is not yet final, a few that could be on the way include Bubble Tea, Fondue, and Seal.

With the 2020 emoji list due to be finalized in the coming months, expect to see any that make the final version of Emoji 13.0 to hit phones in the second half of the year.

• All new emojis in Emoji 12.0
• All new emojis in Emoji 12.1
• The Emoji 12.1 announcement, featuring a preview of Google’s Emoji 12.1 designs expected in early 2020
• iOS 13.2 Emoji Changelog, featuring Apple's new Emoji 12.0 and Emoji 12.1 emojis

Today Twitter has released Twemoji 12.1.5, bringing a large selection of new gender neutral emojis to the platform.

This release comes not long after Twemoji 12.1.4, which updated several existing emojis to show a gender neutral appearance.

Above: All the brand new emojis in Twemoji 12.1.5. Image: Twitter designs / Emojipedia composite.

A total of 178 new emojis are included in Twemoji 12.1.5, 168 of which are part of Emoji 12.1 which was approved by Unicode in October 2019.

All new emojis in Emoji 12.1 are constructed using zero-width-joiner (ZWJ) sequences, which all use existing emoji codepoints to create the new gender inclusive options^[1].

The remaining 10 new emojis are skin tone variations of the single codepoint 💏 Kiss and 👪 Family emojis, which have not been recommended for general interchange (RGI) by Unicode. They join two other non-RGI emojis introduced to the Twitter emoji set earlier in 2019: 🏳️‍⚧️ Transgender Flag and ⚧️ Transgender Symbol.^[2]

Both 💏 Kiss and 👪 Family were also amongst the 394 previously-available emoji designs revised in Twemoji 12.1.4 in November 2019.

Above: All the updated emoji designs featured in Twemoji 12.1.4. Image: Twitter designs / Emojipedia composite.

Now in Twemoji, the need to choose a specific gender when sending an emoji such as a 👮 Police Officer or 🏄 Person Surfing is no longer a requirement, while for gendered variations such as 👮‍♀️ Woman Police Officer and 🏄‍♂️ Man Surfing) remain options.

This approach is more consistent with how the Unicode Consortium defines many emojis and follows similar updates made by Apple and Google in recent months.

🆕 New

Twemoji 12.1.5 has today introduced gender neutral versions of Emoji 11.0's hair options which were previously limited to 👩 Woman or 👨 Man.

Above: New gender-neutral emojis with various hair styles in Twemoji 12.1.5.

• 🧑‍🦰 Person: Red Hair
• 🧑‍🦱 Person: Curly Hair
• 🧑‍🦳 Person: White Hair
• 🧑‍🦲 Person: Bald

Additionally, there are non-gender-specific 🧑 Person designs using a 🦯 Probing Cane, 🦽 Manual Wheelchair, and 🦼 Motorized Wheelchair.

Above: New accessibility-focused gender neutral emojis.

• 🧑‍🦯 Person With Probing Cane
• 🧑‍🦼 Person in Motorized Wheelchair
• 🧑‍🦽 Person in Manual Wheelchair

There are a total of 16 new profession-based emoji designs introduced in Twemoji 12.1.5, providing previously-unavailable gender neutral versions of the likes of 🧑‍🎤 Singer and 🧑‍✈️ Pilot.

Above: New profession-based emojis without a gender specified.

• 🧑‍⚕️ Health Worker
• 🧑‍🎓 Student
• 🧑‍🏫 Teacher
• 🧑‍⚖️ Judge
• 🧑‍🌾 Farmer
• 🧑‍🍳 Cook
• 🧑‍🔧 Mechanic
• 🧑‍🏭 Factory Worker
• 🧑‍💼 Office Worker
• 🧑‍🔬 Scientist
• 🧑‍💻 Technologist
• 🧑‍🎤 Singer
• 🧑‍🎨 Artist
• 🧑‍✈️ Pilot
• 🧑‍🚀 Astronaut
• 🧑‍🚒 Firefighter

Finally, Twemoji 12.1.5 expands the skin tone compositions options for three of the four types of hand holding emojis, specifically 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People Holding Hands, 👭 Women Holding Hands, and 👬 Men Holding Hands.

As per Emoji 12.1 now the order of skin tones can also be chosen. For example 👩🏿‍🤝‍👩🏻 Women Holding Hands: Dark Skin Tone, Light Skin Tone was available months ago, yet the opposite sequence of 👩🏻‍🤝‍👩🏿 Women Holding Hands: Light Skin Tone, Dark Skin Tone is new in this release. Both feature a woman with dark skin tone and one with light skin tone, but the new sequence is in the opposite order.

Above: N 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People Holding Hands combinations in Twemoji 12.1.5.

• 🧑🏻‍🤝‍🧑🏼 People Holding Hands: Light Skin Tone, Medium-Light Skin Tone
• 🧑🏻‍🤝‍🧑🏽 People Holding Hands: Light Skin Tone, Medium Skin Tone
• 🧑🏻‍🤝‍🧑🏾 People Holding Hands: Light Skin Tone, Medium-Dark Skin Tone
• 🧑🏻‍🤝‍🧑🏿 People Holding Hands: Light Skin Tone, Dark Skin Tone
• 🧑🏼‍🤝‍🧑🏽 People Holding Hands: Medium-Light Skin Tone, Medium Skin Tone
• 🧑🏼‍🤝‍🧑🏾 People Holding Hands: Medium-Light Skin Tone, Medium-Dark Skin Tone
• 🧑🏼‍🤝‍🧑🏿 People Holding Hands: Medium-Light Skin Tone, Dark Skin Tone
• 🧑🏽‍🤝‍🧑🏾 People Holding Hands: Medium Skin Tone, Medium-Dark Skin Tone
• 🧑🏽‍🤝‍🧑🏿 People Holding Hands: Medium Skin Tone, Dark Skin Tone
• 🧑🏾‍🤝‍🧑🏿 People Holding Hands: Medium-Dark Skin Tone, Dark Skin Tone

Above: a selection of Twemoji 12.1.5's new 👭 Women Holding Hands combinations.

• 👩🏻‍🤝‍👩🏼 Women Holding Hands: Light Skin Tone, Medium-Light Skin Tone
• 👩🏻‍🤝‍👩🏽 Women Holding Hands: Light Skin Tone, Medium Skin Tone
• 👩🏻‍🤝‍👩🏾 Women Holding Hands: Light Skin Tone, Medium-Dark Skin Tone
• 👩🏻‍🤝‍👩🏿 Women Holding Hands: Light Skin Tone, Dark Skin Tone
• 👩🏼‍🤝‍👩🏽 Women Holding Hands: Medium-Light Skin Tone, Medium Skin Tone
• 👩🏼‍🤝‍👩🏾 Women Holding Hands: Medium-Light Skin Tone, Medium-Dark Skin Tone
• 👩🏼‍🤝‍👩🏿 Women Holding Hands: Medium-Light Skin Tone, Dark Skin Tone
• 👩🏽‍🤝‍👩🏾 Women Holding Hands: Medium Skin Tone, Medium-Dark Skin Tone
• 👩🏽‍🤝‍👩🏿 Women Holding Hands: Medium Skin Tone, Dark Skin Tone
• 👩🏾‍🤝‍👩🏿 Women Holding Hands: Medium-Dark Skin Tone, Dark Skin Tone

Above: a selection of Twemoji 12.1.5's new 👬 Men Holding Hands combinations.

• 👨🏻‍🤝‍👨🏼 Men Holding Hands: Light Skin Tone, Medium-Light Skin Tone
• 👨🏻‍🤝‍👨🏽 Men Holding Hands: Light Skin Tone, Medium Skin Tone
• 👨🏻‍🤝‍👨🏾 Men Holding Hands: Light Skin Tone, Medium-Dark Skin Tone
• 👨🏻‍🤝‍👨🏿 Men Holding Hands: Light Skin Tone, Dark Skin Tone
• 👨🏼‍🤝‍👨🏽 Men Holding Hands: Medium-Light Skin Tone, Medium Skin Tone
• 👨🏼‍🤝‍👨🏾 Men Holding Hands: Medium-Light Skin Tone, Medium-Dark Skin Tone
• 👨🏼‍🤝‍👨🏿 Men Holding Hands: Medium-Light Skin Tone, Dark Skin Tone
• 👨🏽‍🤝‍👨🏾 Men Holding Hands: Medium Skin Tone, Medium-Dark Skin Tone
• 👨🏽‍🤝‍👨🏿 Men Holding Hands: Medium Skin Tone, Dark Skin Tone
• 👨🏾‍🤝‍👨🏿 Men Holding Hands: Medium-Dark Skin Tone, Dark Skin Tone

🆙 Changes

Below is a selection of the 394 emojis changed in the previous release; Twemoji 12.1.4.

The majority of these changes were been made in the name of a more gender neutral presentation.

💇 Person Getting Haircut now appears with shorter hair, paler lips and an orange top in the gender-neutral version.

👯 People With Bunny Ears now wear leotards with longer shorts and higher necklines in the gender-neutral version.

🧜 Merperson now has purple hair and is no longer wearing a strapless top in the gender-neutral version.

🧟 Zombie has new hair, is clad in orange, and has lost their tie and collar in the gender-neutral version.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People Holding Hands now displays two gender neutral people holding hands, as opposed to a woman and a man.

💏 Kiss has been changed to two gender neutral people kissing, instead of a woman and man.

👪 Family now shows two ambiguous adults and one ambiguous child, with the adults' clothing taking the colors from 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People Holding Hands.

⏸️ Unchanged

💑 Couple With Heart continues to show a woman and man, instead of switching to a gender inclusive design.

This contrasts with both Apple and Google's recent updates of this particular emoji.

📶 Release

Rollout of Twemoji 12.1.5 began today across Twitter's various platforms. Twemoji 12.1.5 support will be made available for all users of the Twitter website, the Twitter mobile site, Tweetdeck, and progressively roll out to Twitter for Android. Twemoji 12.1.4 was released in November 2019.

Twemoji 12.1.5 will also be made available via the Open Source Twemoji Repository in the coming days, where Twemoji 12.1.4 is already available.

Users of the iOS Twitter app will continue to see Apple emoji designs, as Twitter for iOS uses to the native system designs for emoji support.

• View all Twemoji emojis
• View every new emoji in Twemoji 12.1.5
• View every changed emoji in Twemoji 12.1.4

The emoji list for 2020 is now complete, with 117 emojis making the final cut for release this year.

Additions include Bubble Tea, Smiling Face With Tear, bottle-feeding parents and the Transgender Flag.^[1] Emojipedia is today releasing sample images for each of the new emojis approved as part of this list.

Above: New emojis approved for release in 2020. Video: Emojipedia.

Welcome additions include an emoji showing People Hugging which shows a greater sense of empathy than the previous excited-looking 🤗 Hugging Face, a pinched finger gesture which is commonly referred to simply as "Italian Hand Gesture".

Variations of existing emojis now approved for 2020 include a woman or gender-inclusive person in a tuxedo, as well as a gender-neutral person or a man in a veil (both were changes proposed by Google). These, along with other approved emojis, will be coming to phones later this year.^[2]

Also included in this update is a gender-inclusive alternative to 🎅 Santa Claus and 🤶 Mrs. Claus, named Mx. Claus. This addition is part of an ongoing effort to make more consistent set of gender options across the board, and expands upon the 138 new gender-neutral emojis added in late 2019 as part of Emoji 12.1.^[3]

Above: New emoji options available in 2020: Woman in Tuxedo, Mx Claus, Man with Veil.

Announced today by the Unicode Consortium, the 117 new emojis form part of Emoji 13.0 and will come to most platforms in the second half of 2020.^[4] As part of today's announcement, Unicode has posted data files and charts for Emoji 13.0, with the sample images shown in the charts for vendor guidance.

Above: Original images from Emojipedia showing how the new emojis may look.

As with all new emoji releases, the appearance of each emoji varies by platform. Images shown on this page (and tweet thread) are original designs created by Emojipedia in a glossy style to show one potential way these may look when implemented on major platforms such as iOS, Android, WhatsApp, or Twitter.

📋 2020 Emoji List

Listed below are are each of the new emojis approved in Emoji 13.0, minus any skin tone variations.

📝 Now approved: 117 new emojis for 2020 #Emoji2020 https://t.co/SojQuXZvv6 pic.twitter.com/sHp7GDsSal

— Emojipedia 📙 (@Emojipedia) January 29, 2020

Image	Emoji
	Smiling Face with Tear
	Disguised Face
	Pinched Fingers With Skin Tones
	Anatomical Heart
	Lungs
	Ninja With Skin Tones
	Person in Tuxedo With Skin Tones
	Woman in Tuxedo With Skin Tones
	Person with Veil With Skin Tones
	Man with Veil With Skin Tones
	Woman Feeding Baby With Skin Tones
	Person Feeding Baby With Skin Tones
	Man Feeding Baby With Skin Tones
	Mx Claus With Skin Tones
	People Hugging
	Black Cat
	Bison
	Mammoth
	Beaver
	Polar Bear
	Dodo
	Feather
	Seal
	Beetle
	Cockroach
	Fly
	Worm
	Potted Plant
	Blueberries
	Olive
	Bell Pepper
	Flatbread
	Tamale
	Fondue
	Teapot
	Bubble Tea
	Rock
	Wood
	Hut
	Pickup Truck
	Roller Skate
	Magic Wand
	Piñata
	Nesting Dolls
	Sewing Needle
	Knot
	Thong Sandal
	Military Helmet
	Accordion
	Long Drum
	Coin
	Boomerang
	Carpentry Saw
	Screwdriver
	Hook
	Ladder
	Elevator
	Mirror
	Window
	Plunger
	Mouse Trap
	Bucket
	Toothbrush
	Headstone
	Placard
	Transgender Symbol
	Transgender Flag

For the purposes of this list, Person in Tuxedo and Person with Veil are shown as new, even though these are existing code points. Not listed: new sequences for Man in Tuxedo and Woman with Veil which are expected to have the same appearance as the current implementations.

Above: Key additions in the emoji set each year. Images: Apple 2014–2018; Emojipedia 2019–2020.

Vendor Preview

For most users, these new emojis will come to devices in software updates throughout 2020.

A number of designs from Google are shown below which are subject to change prior to final release, but give a reasonable indication of how these might look on Android. In past years, Apple has waited until the second half of the year to preview new emojis, often doing this on World Emoji Day in July.

Prior to today's announcement, Twitter already supported Woman in Tuxedo, Transgender Flag and Transgender Symbol emojis, and these are also shown below.

Above: Emojis coming to Android and Twitter in 2020. Images: Google (via Unicode chart / Twitter (via Twemoji).

Release

Unicode announced the publishing of Emoji 13.0 data files on 2020-01-29 (California / US Pacific Time), with the announcement being made ahead of the rest of the Unicode 13.0 release to give vendors appropriate time to work on their emoji release for the year.

Expect to see these new emojis on major operating systems in the second half of 2020.

These tend to come to Android in beta around August, and to iOS and macOS in October or November.

Above: New in 2020: Ninja, Bubble Tea, Pinched Fingers, Accordion, Coin, Person Feeding Baby, Smiling Face With Tear, Teapot, People Hugging. Images: Emojipedia Sample Image Collection.

Resources

• 2020 Emoji List (Emoji 13.0)
• Emojipedia Sample Images for 2020 (Images)
• Emojipedia Sample Images for 2020 (Video)
• Unicode Emoji 13.0 Data Files
• Updated Unicode Emoji Charts

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