New emojis are coming to iOS this year, and for World Emoji Day Apple has revealed to Emojipedia its first preview of how these will look.
Ninja, Boomerang, Piรฑata and Bubble Tea are among the additions shown in today's iOS emoji preview.
Above: New Emojis coming to iOS later this year. Images: Apple / Emojipedia composite.
Approved by Unicode as part of Emoji 13.0, the emoji list for 2020 was announced in January 2020. Given that each platform vendor creates its own designs for every emoji, these usually take until the second half of the year to arrive in operating system updates for end users.
Today is the first time Apple has shown the following new 2020 emojis, coming later in the year to iOS, iPadOS and macOS:
Potentially more relevant than expected in 2020 is the emoji for lungs, which comes alongside an anatomical heart.
Above: Anatomical Heart and Lungs coming to the iOS emoji keyboard later this year. Images: Apple / Emojipedia composite.
One of the most discussed new emojis approved this year is the so-called "Italian Hand" gesture (actual name: Pinched Fingers) which will look like this on Apple platforms:
It's not often helpful to zoom into an emoji as they're so commonly seen at small sizes. The goal is that it can be identified alongside text.
However given it is World Emoji Day and we have this emoji preview, I did want to note the beautiful details on the nesting dolls, which shows the ๐ท and ๐ผ from Apple's other flower emojis.
The Piรฑata and Tamale are shown in this preview in considerable detail, with the Piรฑata taking a traditional nine-point design.
There have been calls for a more suitable mask-wearing emoji in 2020, as the existing ๐ท Face with Medical Mask emoji depicts a sad or sick looking face.
Given that new emoji proposals take up to two years to arrive on phones, we aren't likely to see any Covid-specific emojis on phones this year.
A Ninja emoji - approved prior to the global pandemic - isn't exactly an alternative to a regular face-mask - but they are covered up. This is the version coming to iOS in the Northern Hemisphere autumn/fall:
Additionally, Apple is providing a number of new Memoji options for various headwear and colored face masks, which can be used as stickers in iOS messaging apps.
Above: Memoji stickers add colored mask options in iOS 14.
Release
New emojis come to iOS in the second half of the year, most commonly in a release such as iOS 14.1 or iOS 14.2 in October.
It started with the question: which emoji best represents the year 2020 so far? Users responded, and the emojis were put into a bracket to determine the answer.
Over the past few weeks this resulted in a very clear result. The two emojis that are the 'most 2020' of the set are:
The Unicode Technical Committee met in April 2020 (over Zoom, instead of the usual in-person meeting) with one decision on the agenda being whether a new Emoji 13.1 release should go ahead, or if all new emojis should wait until the next scheduled Unicode release in late 2021.
Disclaimer: Emojipedia is a voting member of the Unicode Consortium and was present for these discussions. Due to the nature of these meetings, all outcomes are published in minutes for the public, though the exact discussions are considered private.
Above: Unicode met in April 2020 'hosted virtually via Zoom'. From the minutes of UTC 163.
The choices facing Unicode and vendors in April of 2020 were:
a. Postpone any new emoji release until Unicode 14.0, meaning no new emojis on phones until 2022; or
b. Create an emoji release which did not require any new code points.
Option 'b' would limit the type and number of emojis which could be approved, but it would allow Unicode to address long-standing goals such as skin tone support for variouscouple emojis (eg ๐ ๐จโโค๏ธโ๐จ ๐ฉโโค๏ธโ๐ฉ ๐ฉโโค๏ธโ๐จ) as well as a number of other emojis that can be created using a sequence of existing code points.
The 13.1 release was authorized by consensus, meaning there will be new emojis coming to phones in 2021.
Above: Authorization of the release of Emoji 13.1 in the UTC minutes for April-May 2020.
2020 remains unaffected, with the 117 new emojis approved in January still coming to most phones throughout 2020, as originally planned.
โค๏ธ Emoji 13.1
Emoji 13.1 will be released in October 2020, according to Unicode meeting minutes.
This is a change from recent years where releases have been made between March and June, allowing companies time to get their emoji updates ready by the Northern Hemisphere autumn/fall.
New emojis listed for Emoji 13.1 have a draft status, meaning these could change prior to release.
The draft candidates for the bearded person emoji would result in options for a bearded person, bearded man, and bearded woman, all with skin tone support. This is an expansion from the current emoji which only shows a bearded man.
Additionally, a new spiral-eyed face would fix a discrepancy where some platforms show this emoji - ๐ต - with X eyes, and others show it with spirals
By creating a new emoji with spiral-eyes, the existing emoji could be uniformly changed to show X-eyes on all operating systems for better cross platform interoperability.
This kind of disambiguation hasn't previously been common in the emoji set, but can be useful where each interpretation is useful in its own right.
In the past, the more common approach has been where vendors converge on one design, which can also be helpful, but it often means the previous meaning is left out of the emoji set altogether.
Above: Over the years, this emoji has had different types of eyes on different platforms. Image: Vendors / Emojipedia composite.
For example, a โthumb and index finger crossedโ emoji was originally drafted for 2021, but as this requires a new code point, this remains part of the planned Emoji 14.0 update, but wouldn't now come to phones until 2022.
The draft candidate charts show example images from Unicode, as well as sample keywords, and other documentation that may be used by vendors.
๐คท When?
Somewhat confusingly, the new Unicode schedule likely means that emojis approved in one year won't come to phones until the following year.
With Emoji 13.1 now set for release in October 2020, that means the new emojis it contains probably won't come to phones until around March 2021 at the earliest, and possibly September-November 2021 (the usual timeframe for major vendor updates) at the latest.
Above: Emoji releases will now be approved in one year, but likely not come to phones until the next year.
Whether vendors such as Apple or Google adjust their release schedules to provide emoji updates early in 2021, or keep them for major OS updates later in the year, is yet to be seen.
In recent years, Apple has notably held emoji updates for a specific release of iOS. In what has been perceived as a way to encourage users to update, iOS has recently followed the pattern of:
September: Major iOS update (eg iOS 14.0)
October: Bug fix and additional features (eg iOS 14.1) including new emojis
The question for Apple becomes whether users will see an emoji update coming to phones an entire year after being approved as being too long.
Separately, Android has its own challenges with Google now offering Pixel users emoji updates faster that other Android phones, but those stuck on other brands of Android phones often end up waiting months or years to see updates for new emoji support.
In a number of instances, apps on Android now use their own emoji designs which differ from the system. This include WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, and Telegram for Android.
In practice, vendors rarely announce their software schedules this far ahead of time. We likely won't know exactly when the new emojis of 2021 will be supported until next year.
๐ฑ What Now?
Let's not get too ahead of ourselves. The majority of smartphone users will still be awaiting the new 2020 emojis like bubble tea, or pinched fingers to come to their phones.
Above: Until 2020, Samsung displayed this emoji incorrectly. Image: Vendors / Emojipedia composite.
These obscure characters don't even show on the default emoji keyboard. They are the Regional Indicator Characters that are used to create flag emojis. For instance ๐ฌ ๐ง is used as the codes to create ๐ฌ๐ง Flag: United Kingdom and ๐ง ๐ท is used to create ๐ง๐ท Flag: Brazil.
With World Emoji Day 2022 only 5๏ธโฃ days away, we here at Emojipedia are rolling out a new, globally-focused feature for our site: support for five new languages. As of today, users can experience Emojipedia in Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, and Italian.
This means that our users can now navigate and search through the Emojipedia archives in these five languages.
Across the entire site, our users can change their current language via the bottom of our left-hand sticky menu bar on desktop, or the bottom of the burger menu option on mobile devices.
Clicking on the circular icon with a two-letter language code on desktop devices will open a pop-up window where users can change the language they are browsing Emojipedia in.
Changing language from a site page will refresh that page in the newly selected language (e.g. โจ Sparkles in English will update to โจ Chispas in Spanish).
Additionally, our search results page now features a prominent "๐ Search in another language" option, which also opens the same language selection pop-up window as the menu bar.
See a translation that you believe needs tweaking? Email us via languages@emojipedia.org. ๐ง
While much of editorial content has yet to be translated, search and navigation are fully functional in these five languages, and we hope to begin updating our editorial content as we reach the later parts of 2022 and into 2023. ย โ๏ธ๐๐
Also, these five new languages are just the beginning - we'll be rolling out support for additional languages in the very near future. ๐๐๐๐
We hope to support all of the world's major languages as we enter 2023, and truly be able to celebrate World Emoji Day 2023 on an ever grander global scale next year. ๐ฅณ๐
A Shaking Face, two pushing hands, and a plain Pink Heart. These are just some of the emojis that are up for approval this September. Ahead of World Emoji Day, Emojipedia has created sample designs for each candidate emoji. While some might not make the cut, most presented for approval are historically confirmed.
The Emojipedia Sample Images shown above are just one way in which these emojis might look, created by Emojipedia's Head of Emoji Design Joshua Jones.
This is our eighth year of providing sample emoji designs ahead of their official arrival on emoji keyboards.
Actual vendor designs will vary from those released by major vendors, and Emojipedia's own sample images may also be updated when Emoji 15.0 final is released.
Additionally, as this is only a draft emoji list, each emoji is subject to change prior to final approval in September 2022.
However, it is worth noting the majority of draft emoji candidates have ended up included on the final list over the last number of years - including every emoji we previewed from last year's Emoji 14.0 draft list ahead of World Emoji Day 2021.
What's in the latest draft emoji list, and when it is scheduled for approval https://t.co/yemIEzDfKi
This isn't a part of the approval process, just a fun way to gauge which draft emojis people are most keen to use. So get voting, and the winner will be revealed ahead of World Emoji Day!
Speaking of World Emoji Day, in case you missed in over the last number of days:
For additional information about the Emoji 15.0 draft list, you can review the Unicode 15.0 draft release notes, and Emoji 15.0 beta page. The latter includes recommended keywords and proposal documents. We do have some of our own observations, however.
๐ New (Draft) Emoji Observations
While, again, the list is still in draft, there are a few observations we can make about the emojis that may well be arriving on our emoji keyboards later this year.
Firstly, Emoji 15.0 is likely to deliver upon a long-request emoji: a plain Pink Heart.
This has been one of the most discussed absences on the emoji keyboard for many years, with a Pink Heart being amongst our own assessments of the most popular emoji requests since 2016.
im never gonna stop talking about how beneficial a pink heart emoji would be
Isn't there already a pink heart, we hear some of you ask? Yes and no. In short, this will be a completely plain pink heart without additional adornments or features, that are defined by its color alone: think along the lines of ๐งก Orange Heart, ๐ Yellow Heart, ๐ Green Heart, and ๐ Blue Heart.
The second observation is that this is a much smaller number of new emojis than has been the case in recent years.
The draft list for Emoji 15.0 contains only 31 recommended emojis, while 2021's Emoji 14.0 contained 112 recommendations, while 2020's Emoji 13.0 and Emoji 13.1 contained 334 between them (117 and 217, respectively).
In fact, it is the smallest number of new emojis that Unicode has ever recommended at any one time since before the "Emoji Version" numbering began.
Additionally, for the first time ever, there are no new people emojis in this batch of recommendations.
This does come, however, after people emojis have constituted a majority of the last three batches of emoji recommendations. And that's without counting the different body parts and gesture emojis.
2019's Emoji 12.1 was exclusively people emojis: a series of zero width joiner sequences that added gender-neutral variants of the different profession/role emojis from 2016's Emoji 4.0 and the hairstyles from 2018's Emoji 11.0, as well as expanding upon the different ๐งโ๐คโ๐ง People Holding Hands emojis first added in Emoji 12.0 earlier the same year.
The new Donkey emoji will mean that the animal mascots of both major political parties in the United States of America will have emoji versions (joining the ๐ Elephant emoji).
The Rightwards Pushing Hand and Leftwards Pushing Hand should have great combinational power with other emojis - and maybe even with each other to create an actual high five emoji.
Amusingly, the codepoint of the Moose emoji is "FACE" (U+1FACE). Whether or not vendors decide to show just its head like our Emojipedia Sample Image or display the full-bodied creature will have to be seen.
๐ Emoji Timeline
When will you get the new emojis on your iPhone, Pixel, or other devices and platforms? There are two parts to this:
It is yet to be confirmed which emojis are in the final version of Emoji 15.0 - as we've said above, this is still a draft list. However, based on recent years, the final version is likely to resemble this draft list. This means that no new emojis will be added at this stage, though there's a slight chance that a draft emoji candidate is changed or removed ahead of September.
Release dates for emoji support always vary by the operating system, app, or device.
With those two things in mind, here's our estimated timeline for Emoji 15.0's approval and release across major emoji vendors.
Expect to see some companies come out with early emoji support in late 2022, and the majority of updates to take place in the first half of 2023.
Here's when each vendor began to support (or began to preview) last year's Emoji 14.0 recommendations.
The Microsoft Teams set also includes a series of animated emoji designs from outside of Unicodeโs recommendations.
These include a sacrastic clapping smiley, a brooding emo smiley with a prominent fringe, a cactus with a heart-shaped ballon, a older woman with maracas, and versions of the ๐ถ Dog Face, ๐ฑ Cat Face, and ๐ต Monkey Face wearing ๐ถ๏ธ Sunglasses (there's also a ๐ค Robot and ๐จ Koala that have donned some shades).
The 3D Fluent set also includes several designs seeking to encapsulate aspects of the work-from-home experience:
How does Microsoft Teams support these additions to the emoji keyboard? It's due to how they are implemented.
โฌ๏ธโฌ๏ธ Shortcode Ups & Downs
Microsoft Teamsโ animated designs not featured in other emoji keyboards are implemented through text-based shortcodes such as (happy), (inlove), and (party).
Shortcode implementations are not a novel concept within the emoji space, though it comes with both advantages and disadvantages.
The main disadvantage relates to cross-app compatibility. Copying a sentence that contains emoji design not recommended by Unicode from Microsoft Team into another app that doesn't support the same shortcode system will display the shortcode instead of the graphic.
Whether such copying of messages from Microsoft Teams is a likely scenario or not is debatable, but this limitation of shortcodes is real.
However, the major advantage of shortcode implementation is the ability to swiftly add new additions to specific platforms' emoji keyboards without the need for a formal proposal to the Unicode Consortium.
Is it possible that the emoji designs found within Microsoft Teams could eventually make their way to other emoji keyboards across the globe?
While new flag emoji proposes aren't currently being considered by Unicode, it's entirely possible that the likes of (werewolfhowl) and (emo) could be argued for within an emoji proposal.
(Psst - want to make the argument for their inclusion yourself? The deadline for Emoji 16.0 submissions is 30th July 2022, so you better get writing up that proposal - as per Unicode's detailed guidelines, of course.)
All proposals, however, have to be discussed and approved by the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee - a process that over a calendar year: Emoji 16.0 is expected to be formally recommended in September 2023.
The 3D Fluent emoji set for Microsoft Teams began rolling out to select users from February 2022. It is expected to be available for all Microsoft Teams users across both Work & School and Home additions in the near future.
Today, on World Emoji Day 2022, JoyPixels have released version 7.0 of their freemium emoji set. The update includes emojis such as ๐ซ Melting Face, ๐ซก Saluting Face, and ๐ซถ Heart Hands, as well as the considerable number of design changes that has come be expected of major JoyPixels update.
All of the 112 new emojis included in JoyPixels 7.0 are drawn from September 2021's Emoji 14.0 recommendations.
Additionally, nearly 2,000 emoji designs have been revised in this update - including 1,600 people emoji design revisions (including skin tone modifier options).
As has come to be expected in major JoyPixels emoji updates, a large number of existing emojis have had their designs revised.
As mentioned above, the majority of these changes are within the people category: almost all people emojis have had their hair designs changed at least subtly.
Notably, almost all of the people emojis without a skin tone modifier no longer have brown hair by default - instead, they now have a yellowish hair color, akin to how many other emoji vendors depict these emojis' hair. ๐ง Person is shown as an example below.
Additionally, all the different people gesturing and profession emojis now display more of the individual's torso, often with some additional pose or feature.
JoyPixels 7.0 is available now. Like previous JoyPixels updates, it is available on a freemium basis, with licensing required for some but not all usage types.
Happy World Emoji Day! Emojipedia's annual celebration of all things emoji is now in its ninth year, and here's a quick rundown of what's been happening as part of the 2022 celebration! ๐๐ ๐ฅณ
๐ New Emojis
Emoji 15.0 is due for approval this September, and what better time than World Emoji Day to look ahead to the final candidates and get a feel for what might be on phones in 2022-2023.
โ World Emoji Awards ๐ณ๐๐ (@EmojiAwards) July 17, 2022
๐ More on World Emoji Day
The more playful side of World Emoji Day isn't generally covered in detail here on Emojipedia, but to see what's been happening the best place is the #WorldEmojiDay hashtag on your social platform of choice.
Or check out the official World Emoji Day accounts:
A Twitter bot is sharing different designs from Google's popular Emoji Kitchen feature within Gboard, which allows users to combine different emoji designs and send them as stickers. It joins the ranks of many other emoji-based bots on the platform.
Operating under the handle @EmojiKitchen, the new bot describes itself as an "unofficial emoji Twitter account" but as an "official love letter to Emoji Kitchen".
As of its most recent update, the Emoji Kitchen boasts over 25,000 different unique designs, which can be explored across nearly 700 different emojis across the emoji keyboard, and the new @EmojiKitchen bot appears to support the vast majority of these options and designs.
A new update to the @Google@EmojiKitchen provides support for over 50 additional emojis, including ๐ New Moon Face, ๐ฆฉ Flamingo, ๐ก Light Bulb, and ๐ป Sunflower.
โ Emojipedia ๐๐ (@Emojipedia) June 2, 2022
This unofficial @EmojiKitchen bot is similar to Emojipedia's own official @BotEmoji, which will respond to an emoji-featuring tweet with a link to that emoji's Emojipedia meaning page.
If @EmojiKitchen is sent a tweet with two emojis that can be combined within the Emoji Kitchen, the bot will reply with those emojis' mashed-up design:
If two of the same supported emoji are included within a tweet, you'll get an especially exaggerated "doubled up" version of that emoji's Noto Color Emoji design.
Additionally, if the bot receives a tweet with two or more emojis that the Emoji Kitchen has yet to support, it may offer a piece of heart-shaped emoji grid art.
Another famous example of emoji images being shared by a bot is of course the @EmojiMashupBot, which combines different design emoji attributes from the Twemoji set.
Furthermore, bots like @EmojiTetra and @EmojiSnakeGame allow users to play emoji-based versions of classic arcade games collectively via Twitter polls.
A series of videos featuring Emojipedia have been going viral across Tiktok, most of which hone in on the unique, detailed, and occasionally over-the-top emoji designs from the emojidex vendor set.
Many of the Tiktok videos feature a sound uploaded by Tiktok user @affonsor, which consists of a period of silence before a snippet from the intro of the song "Can You Feel My Heart" by British rock band Bring Me The Horizon plays.
The rapid fade-in of "Can You Feel My Heart" is synchronized with when the emojidex design appears on the screen.
The thumbnail for @affonsor's adaption of "Can You Feel My Heart" is also a version of the Gigachad meme, with a white beard and a special forces beret seemingly inspired by the character of William "Bill" Overbeck in the Left 4 Dead video game franchise.
Several other videos include clips from different pieces of music, including a bass guitar sting from Seinfield (Festivus emojis, anyone?).
Both of the above "Emoji Lore" videos are accompanied by "Merry-Go-Round" from the soundtrack of 2004's Howl's Moving Castle from Studio Ghibli.
We'd like to thank friend of Emojipedia Radek Bลฤdowski for sending many of the above Tiktok videos our way.
๐ผ๏ธ Emojidex
The Emojidex vendor set was first uploaded to Emojipedia in May 2016 (emojidex 1.0.14). An open-source emoji set, emojidex's creators describe the project as the world's first "emoji as a service" platform.
emojidex also comes with an API for developers looking to integrate in their projects in what the developers call their emoji as a service platform.
While the smiley emojis each share a similar design style, the aesthetics of emojis can vary considerably within the Emojidex set, as can be seen across the selection of food emoji designs below:
While Emojipedia features Emojidex designs that match Unicode's recommendations, the project allows individuals across the globe to sign up and contribute their own designs for yet-to-be-supported emojis or possible emoji shortcodes.
It's common wisdom on TikTok that the laughing crying emoji is for boomers. And by boomers I mean anyone over the age of 35.
For many commenters, ๐ has replaced ๐ as the acceptable way to laugh. ๐ Skull says this was so funny I have died from laughter, therefore ๐ = โI'm deadโ.
Today Emojipedia has received its first new major site redesign since early September 2015, with the introduction of new fixed navigation and search features for both desktop and mobile users.
Above: the newly redesigned Emojipedia home page, displaying a new logotype as well as a new fixed navigation menu on the left-hand side of the screen.
๐๐งญ Improved Navigation
For desktop users, the most evident new feature is the new fixed menu bar now residing on the left-hand side of their screen, which extends when you hover your cursor over it. The menu also scrolls with you while exploring all of our emoji information.
Above: the redesigned Emojipedia homepage with the new fixed navigation menu extended.
The new menu also now contains the language change tool. Placed at the very bottom of the menu, this allows for users to easily change between all of the six languages presently supported for emoji search and navigation, again regardless of what position on a page they happen to be.
Above: the icon to change the language on Emojipedia is now located at the bottom corner of the fixed navigation menu.
You can visit and search through these new versions of Emojipedia via the links below:
Above: the language selection lightbox that appears when the language icon is selected from the new navigation menu.
๐๐ฒ New Search & Mobile Menus
The cross-site search bar now scrolls with the users as they navigate through our emoji, allowing for swift access to our search functionality across all site pages and positions.
Above: the search bar is now permanently fixed to the top of the screen for our desktop users, as shown here midway through the Apple iOS 15.4 vendor page.
This change is also the case for mobile users, who will see a new fixed top menu with swift cross-site access to both popular page types and emoji search regardless of which portion of a site page you happen to be viewing.
Above: the next fixed menu on mobile web, featuring navigation options via the burger menu and search via the search icon.Above: the mobile web navigation menu when extended via the new burger menu icon.
The mobile search functionality also displays a list of the most popular emoji pages across Emojipedia.
The Emojipeida homepage and footer have also been cleaned-up across both desktop and mobile, leveraging new landing pages such as All Emoji Versions and All Vendors & Platforms to detail historic emoji vendors, emoji releases, and other information alongside additional editorial context.
These improvements to navigation and search accessibility are the first steps of many we plan to take over the coming months and years to improve the overall experience of Emojipedia and allow for even swifter access to up-to-date and well-researched information you can trust.
This week a new emoji-filled book has begun to pop up in stores worldwide: The Hanmoji Handbook: Your Guide to the Chinese Language through Emoji. Published by MITeen Press and Candlewick Press, the book uses emojis as a means of introducing and memorizing Chinese Han characters, thus the name "Hanmoji".
It'sssssssssssss finally out!
โจ The Hanmoji Handbook: Your Guide to the Chinese Language Though Emoji โจ โ by me, An Xiao Mina & @jenny8lee, published by @MITeenPress โ appears in bookshops across the US and Canada today! pic.twitter.com/sTkudPAwxb
Co-authored by Jenny 8. Lee of Emojination alongside designer Jason Li and technologist An Xiao Mina, The Hanmoji Handbook is aimed at both Chinese language learners and emoji aficionados, channeling emoji combinations and sequences in outlining how Chinese characters are already made up of re-usable "modules" (or "radicals"), that often get combined with one another to create new meaning.
Above: The Hanmoji for "forest", which is a combination of two๐ฒ Evergreen Tree emojis in the same way the Chinese for "forest" is two ๆจ (tree) characters.
Primarily using emoji designs from Google's Noto Color Emoji set, the book details not just how emojis can help us to better understand and recall select characters from both Mandarin pinyin and Cantonese Jyutping, but also contains an engaging overview of the history of both writing systems in Chinese and, of course, emojis and Unicode.
No prior knowledge of Chinese is needed!
We hoping that this will be a book for both avid Chinese languages learners as well as emoji aficionados โ so don't worry, we'll explain everything along the way ๐ pic.twitter.com/HkPSecHDMA
Recommended retailers from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom are detailed on the official Hanmoji website.
The official website site also includes a small number of Hanmoji puzzles, with the promise of further puzzles for those subscribed to the Hanmoji substack.
๐๏ธ Author Interview
As part of the launch, we here at Emojipedia sat down with the three authors of The Hanmoji Handbook to discuss their varied backgrounds, the similarities between Chinese characters and emojis, and the creation process of the newly-published handbook.
Keith Broni of Emojipedia (KB):So, I believe each of you has a different personal story when it comes to learning Chinese. What are those stories?
An Xiao Mina (AX): So I studied Mandarin in college and before that had just had a kind of passing interest - I grew up speaking English. So for me, it was very much a very manual process: learning the characters, sitting down, practicing. My grammar was terrible, but my teacher always said you have beautiful handwriting. And so I always took an interest in the writing in the script and how the characters came together: how you constructed them, what they were made of, and how you remember what they are.
Jenny 8. Lee (J8): Though I was born in the United States, Chinese was my first language: I was probably taught characters by my parents with flashcards when I was around two years old. And then I went to Chinese school on the weekends when I was young, though it did us no favors: we were missing all the Saturday morning cartoons! This generation of children would never realize how traumatizing it was to miss the only block period in the week when there were cartoons available for us to watch.
But yes, in my youth, I was basically learning English and Chinese at the same time. And then, when you're little and you're learning Chinese, you are learning things like the word for "good" (ๅฅฝ) is "woman" (ๅฅณ) plus "child" (ๅญ). Even my six-year-old self was someone indignant at that realization, but it was a lesson in how different Chinese characters can be constructed through combinations of others - and that's a major part of The Hanmoji Handbook.
Jason Li (JL): I was born in Hong Kong and so I grew up speaking Cantonese, so Chinese and English were the languages I was learning in school. My family immigrated to Canada after I finished grade one, so I went straight to ESL and stopped learning Chinese. I did three years of catching up in English while in Canada, and then we went back to Hong Kong. But I still had grade one Chinese, and I couldn't cram three years of Chinese over the summer, so I had to attend an English-speaking international school.
However, my mom did try to give me lessons in Chinese here and there, and I was a fluent speaker of Cantonese, so one of my ways of learning can learning Chinese then was just if this character sounds like this, I would just write it next to it: a custom system for recollection. And part of the thesis of the book is that we propose a new way of helping people learn and remember Chinese characters, with emojis acting as a helpful code in the same way that I knew Cantonese.
KB: Jenny's work in the emoji space is very well-documented between joining the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee, EmojiNation, and The Emoji Story documentary film, to name but a few ventures. Jason and An Xiao - what was your relationship with emojis prior to working on The Hanmoji Handbook?
JL: By the time we had come together for the book I had already worked with Jenny via EmojiNation to pass an emoji: we got the ๐ฆ Llama emoji passed, and I believe the ๐ชณ Cockroach emoji was submitted and awaiting a decision.
AX: I've been looking academically at online culture and visual culture for a while, but like with Jason it was my friendship with Jenny that led me here: just hanging out and her talking about emojis. We would text using emojis and then we would text in Chinese, and that's actually how the idea for the book came together. Cause she asked me one day back in 2018 "have you ever done emoji research"?
KB: The Hanmoji Handbook uses concepts like the Chinese Zodiac and then traditional five elements as some of the first examples of how many Chinese han characters have direct emoji equivalents. How did that structure first come to be?
Peppered in between all of the language learning (and language histories!) are fun tidbits about Chinese culture. Just look at this adorable zodiac: pic.twitter.com/pzs4OKLXcp
JL: The book initially started with just us being excited about certain emoji combos that could match the underlying meanings of Chinese characters, like the "woman" (ๅฅณ) and "child" (ๅญ) combo meaning "good" (ๅฅฝ). And so it starts off with us just like playing with those, but then the building block approach came about when were considering how we could best help guide fresh learners or a non-Chinese speaking audience to understand the concepts behind the book, and not just introducing 50 Chinese characters and their equivalent Hanmoji characters up front.
AX: It was very iterative, but I would say really, even before the book was begun to be written, we were aiming for a combination of play and a sense of academic rigor as well. We actually had an academic paper that we worked on while writing the book.
J8: One of the things that we did in that academic paper was take all of the 214 Chinese "radicals" and try to map them to emojis to see which ones had roughly matching ones. And what was stunning to me was how many kind of slightly obscure radicals had emoji counterparts. One of my favorite ones is snout: there's a snout emoji but there is also a snout radical. Animal tracks is a radical, and there's actually also an animal tracks emoji.
But when it came to using the elements, and this book being an iterative process, well when we began the project we realized there were certain concepts that were missing: we were doing the elements of water (๐ฆ Water Drops; ๆฐด), wood, (๐ฒ Evergreen Tree; ๆจ), fire (๐ฅ Fire; ็ซ), earth (๐ Globe Showing Asia-Australia; ๅ), but when we began in 2018 an emoji that could approximately represent the concept of "metal" (้ - the material, not the music genre) was missing. And if something was a universal enough concept to become a Chinese character, like 4,000, 3000, or 2000 years ago, sure it also was important enough to be immortalized in Unicode today in emoji form?
So we found a since-closed emoji gap: when we began, the closest concept to metal was โ๏ธ Pick, but now we have ๐ช Coin. Another example of a radical that didn't have an emoji when we began working on the book is the flute but is now very likely to be an emoji when Emoji 15.0 is approved.
Above: the hanzi for fire (็ซ) resembles the shape of the ๐ฅ Fire emoji.
KB: Now that it's released, what do you primarily want readers to get out of reading The Handmoji Handbook?
AX: I think when we set out to write the book, one thing that I was thinking about was "How could I write this for the me who was 10 years old, but in today's times", right? The kind of nerdy kid that's curious about the world, learning about things, and really diving into books.
So you're gonna get an introduction to the Chinese language, an introduction to how emojis work in the world, with standards and the processes of the Unicode Subcommittee. What I hope our readers of any age get out of this is really a curiosity about how language works today with the intersection of linguistics and technology. Technology and language deeply influence each other: the way they're expressed, the way they're created, the way they're disseminated. ย If a reader comes out with that curiosity activated and starts to think about language in a different way, then that would be amazing.
JL: Yeah, I do want people to think about language in a more fluid way, and have a more playful relationship with language. The book is primarily about emojis and Chinese, comparing them back and forth, but I want people to come out with a more flexible understanding of language systems in general, and to be able to understand new things that they see in the world.
J8: I think ideally something we would wanna get out from the book is that it becomes a basis for lessons: a more fun way to learn Chinese for either kids or adults. I think it'd be really cool if this book was used by academics, or if it was put on a syllabus. And I want our readers to enjoy the handbook enough that they tell other people about it, and it would be my ideal thing where it gets into cultural fabric enough that people mention it to me without knowing that I was involved with it. ย
๐ Release
The Hanmoji Handbook is now available in stores across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Recommended retailers can be found on Hanmoji.org, or via the list below:
Indiebound (USA ๐บ๐ธ)
Barnes & Noble (USA ๐บ๐ธ)
Shop Local (Canada ๐จ๐ฆ)
Indigo (Canada ๐จ๐ฆ)
Blackwells (United Kingdom ๐ฌ๐ง & Global ย ๐)
The latest emoji list drafted by the Unicode Consortium is due for formal approval today, with new emojis including a Goose, a Hyacinth, a Shaking Face, and a plain Pink Heart.
The release of version 15.0 of the Unicode Standard today, 13 September, formalizes what has until now been only a draft release of new emojis and several thousand additional non-emoji characters.
Browse Unicode 15.0 on Emojipedia or see the Unicode 15.0.0 release notes provided by the Unicode Consortium.
๐งฎ How Many?
Unicode 15.0 includes 4,489 new characters, of which 20 are brand new emoji code points.
Additionally, the Emoji 15.0 recommendation list which accompanies Unicode 15.0 includes an additional 11 emoji sequence recommendations, leading to a total of 31 new emojis being approved for release today.
The distinction between Unicode 15.0 and Emoji 15.0 is that the latter includes sequences where two or more code points can be combined to display a single emoji, while the former only includes the list of standalone emoji codepoints.
By way of example, 2020's Emoji 12.1 and 2021's Emoji 13.1 recommendations only included emoji sequences and came out at a separate time from any full Unicode release.
No changes have been made to the draft emoji list since we here at Emojipedia previewed the Emoji 15.0 draft list on July 17, aka World Emoji Day.
As of Emoji 15.0, there are now a total of 3,664 emojis recommended by Unicode.
๐ New Emojis
The most attention-grabbing aspect of draft Emoji 15.0 list was the inclusion of the much-requested plain Pink Heart emoji.
While formal documentation for the Unicode Standard only provides glyphs in black and white, color emoji implementations can and do vary from these designs.
Proposals for new emojis can come from a variety of sources, including members of the public.
Example color images are commonly shown on pages of new emoji information by Unicode and come from various sources. These are intended to convey the preferred design choices for vendors when implementing emojis.
In recent years new updates have been more closely aligned to these color images than in the past. While the designs shown on these emoji information pages aren't formally part of the Unicode Standard, they do provide useful direction for implementors.
๐ก Non-Emoji Updates
The vast majority of characters in the Unicode Standard are not emojis. Emoji updates are given priority here at Emojipedia, but it's worth taking a moment to look at some of the other new characters approved in this release.
The Unicode Consortium is the non-profit standards body responsible for the Unicode Standard. Voting members include Apple, Google, and Microsoft.
Regarding version this update, Unicode notes:
Unicode 15.0 adds 4,489 characters, for a total of 149,186 characters. These additions include 2 new scripts, for a total of 161 scripts, along with 20 new emoji characters, and 4,193 CJK (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) ideographs.
To put it in perspective, the total number of RGI emoji characters and sequences totals 3,633 in Unicode 15.0, compared to the 149,186 characters in the entire Unicode Standard.
Symbols added in this release (which aren't implemented as emojis) also include the Kawi and NagMundari scripts, as well as the nine-pointed white star symbol used by members of the Bahรกโรญ Faith.
The release of Unicode 15.0 and Emoji 15.0 does not mean users can immediately access or use any new emoji from this list.
What today's release from the Unicode Consortium does indicate is when major vendors such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, or Samsung can implement these new emojis in their software.
Expect to see some companies come out with early emoji support in late 2022, and the majority of updates to take place in the first half of 2023. Based on last year's post-pandemic release schedule, here is our estimate for when you can expect to see Emoji 15.0 emojis appear across different devices and platforms:
Last year, Google decoupled emoji updates from operating system updates, promising faster emoji updates for more Android users in the future. This quickly came to pass for last year's Emoji 14.0 release, which was available for select Android users from November 2021.
Apple's last major emoji update was in iOS 15.4, aptly released on 14 March 2022. This added support for Emoji 14.0, which was also aptly approved on 14 September 2021.
If Apple sticks to this release schedule, expect to see Emoji 15.0 support come to iOS 16.4 in March or April 2023.
No new emojis were included in iOS 16.0, which was released yesterday.
Now that the code points for Unicode 15.0 are stable, these remain in place forever.
Sending a ๐ฉท won't show as a Pink Heart emoji on any platforms at the time of writing, but once your app or operating system supports the latest new emoji additions, that missing character above will be replaced by that much-requested colorful emoji.
๐ Support Unicode
The Unicode Consortium is a small non-profit organization, which is funded primarily through membership fees and donations.
One means through which Unicode obtain additional funding is their Adopt A Character program, through which both people and organizations can be listed as a sponsor of an emoji or, indeed, any other character within Unicode. In fact, more than 136,000 characters can be adopted.
Adopting a character helps the non-profit Unicode Consortium in its goal to support the worldโs languages and of course, continue to encode new emojis within the Unicode Standard.
All sponsors are acknowledged in Sponsors of Adopted Characters and Uniocode's public Twitter feed and will receive a custom digital badge for their character.
Earlier today the latest batch of emojis, Emoji 15.0, was formally approved by Unicode. Mere hours later, Google unveiled a whole host of new emoji-based features, which included their support for Emoji 15.0 as well as a brand new set of animated emojis which are now viewable on Emojipedia.
Today's feature announcements also come just days after Google revealed a new "Emojify" text feature for Gboard, which is currently available for beta testers.
Above: the 31 new emoji designs from Emoji 15.0 in Google's Noto Color Emoji.
The above designs are part of the latest update to Google's Noto Color Emoji font, which is used by Android devices by manufacturers Xiaomi, Oppo, Huawei, and of course Google themselves.
The update is currently available as a color vector font file. According to Jennifer Daniel, Google's Emoji and Expression Creative Director and the current chairperson of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee, these emoji designs will:
all coming to Android soon and will become available across Google products early next year.
You can view all 180 of Google's animated Noto Color Emoji designs on Emojipedia here.
๐จ New Color Font Support
In addition to providing support for Emoji 15.0 within their Noto Color Emoji and Noto Emoji fonts, Google have also demonstrated how the relatively new COLRv1 font format allows for the customize the appearance of color fonts, such as the Noto Color Emoji.
Emoji innovation isn't limited to your phone anymore and there is a lot to be explored in web environments. Thx to a new font format called COLRv1 you can also do some sweet things to customize the appearance of color fonts ๐ฆ
You can play around with manipulating the colors of the ๐ฆ Duck emoji via this tool, provided that you are using the latest version of Google's Chrome browser.
We just added a whole bunch of new fonts and theyโre all #colorfonts! This is just the beginning for the COLRv1 file format, which supports gradients, customized color palettes, and more. Check out all 9 and find out why 6 of them are for Arabic scripts. https://t.co/CgQIkYZrospic.twitter.com/yWt3Obmn6k
As aforementioned, today's announcements come less than a week since a new beta update to Google's Gboard Android keyboard: the ability to fully "emojify" a text-based message once an emoji has been added to it.
Above: adding an emoji to a message makes a new magic wand icon appear, which can be used to insert a variety of relevant emojis to a message with multiple different placement options. Image: Google / Jennifer Daniel.
The feature, which is presently in beta for the Gboard Beta app in English, allows users to toggle through a variety of different "emojifying" options for a text message after a single emoji has been initially added to that message.
This is done through a new magic wand icon, which only appears after an emoji has been added to the text.
๐ lol โจ I โจ didn't ๐ mention โจ what โจ the ๐ feature โจ does โจ or ๐ how โจ you โจ can ๐ use โจ it ๐
Using Gboard, type a message in a chat app of ur choice
Add an emoji โ โจvoilaโจ a magic wand will appear
Finally, alongside the addition of the new "Emojify" feature, the latest beta update for Gboard introduced support for additional new emojis within Google's Emoji Kitchen feature.
Microsoft have begun rolling out a new update to Windows 11, bringing support for the likes of ๐ซ Melting Face, ๐ซก Saluting Face, and ๐ซถ Heart Hands to their emoji set. This update also revises several previously-released 2D Fluent emoji designs.
This Windows 11 update, entitled 2H22, includes all of the new emojis that were approved by Unicode in September 2021's Emoji 14.0.
107 of these recommendations make their debut in Windows 11 2H22, while five of the ๐ค Handshake variants have been supported by Microsoft since a Windows 10 update in July 2015.
This update does not, however, contain any new emojis from this month's Emoji 15.0 recommendations.
This means that Windows users will have to continue to wait for support for the likes of the Shaking Face, the Goose, and the plain Pink Heart.
๐ New
Windows 11 2H22 update introduces the seven brand new smiley face emojis.
Windows 11 now also includes one new body part emoji - the ๐ซฆ Biting Lip emoji - and a new ๐ง Troll emoji ย - the first fantasy creature introduced since Emoji 5.0.
Seven brand new gesture emojis also make their debut within this update.
In addition to all the above changes, all of the various hand gesture and people emojis without a skin tone modifier have had their neutral yellow skin tone revised to be slightly darker and more gold in color.
The shadowing on these people and gesture emojis has also been made darker, leading to greater contrast.
๐ป Release
The Windows 11 22H2 update is now available as a free update for Windows 11 users in select regions, with global rollout continuing over the next few weeks and months.
Those using Windows Insider builds would have already received this update at various stages over the past few years, varying based on the fast or slow ring options.
The first Insider build to receive this emoji update was Build 22557, released 2021-02-16.
Today Samsung has officially begun rolling out their support for Android 13 via their One UI 5.0 update. This update introduces support not only for 2021 emoji recommendations such as the ๐ซ Melting Face and ๐ซถ Heart Hands, but also emojis from the recent 2022 list such as the Shaking Face and the plain Pink Heart.
This means that Samsung is the first emoji vendor to support the latest batch of emoji recommendations - Emoji 15.0 - across their devices.
This is a significant departure from Samsung's release schedule of recent years, where Samsung users were often left waiting roughly a year before their device's native emoji font provided support for Unicode's recommendations.
๐ New
Today's One UI 5.0 update contains a total of 138 new emojis: 107 from last year's Emoji 14.0 and all 31 from this year's Emoji 15.0.
That's not to say that this update will be the first time Samsung users will be seeing all of the new emojis within today's One UI 5.0 update: those running Android 12 via One UI 4.0 and above will most likely have experienced Google's Noto Color Emoji designs for 2021's Emoji 14.0 recommendations.
A total of eight new smileys make their debut within Samsung native emoji design within One UI 5.0: seven from 2021's Emoji 14.0 list and the ๐ซจ Shaking Face emoji from this year's Emoji 15.0.
These come alongside three new colorful heart emojis from Emoji 15.0, including the long-requested plain ๐ฉท Pink Heart.
While One UI 5.0 is the first time these new emojis have been supported in Samsung's native emoji design set, it is unlikely to be the first time many Samsung users have seen many of these emojis on their devices.
This AppCompat update meant that applications running the latest version of the Android compatibility library would have access to Google's emoji designs if a device's native emoji set has yet to provide support for that particular emoji.
Since Google began rolling out its support for Emoji 14.0 back in October 2021, users of Samsung devices running Android 12 would have therefore seen Google's emoji in select applications instead of a missing character symbol.
With today's One UI 5.0 update, however, these Google designs will be replaced by the Emoji 14.0 designs from Samsung's own native emoji design set.
Additionally, while they have released their Emoji 15.0 designs via a Noto Color Emoji font file, Google have yet to formally begin the rollout of their Emoji 15.0 support across their various devices and platforms.
This means that in a significant departure from previous years' emoji releases, Samsung users are the first to experience support for the latest emoji recommendations from Unicode within their devices' native font.
๐ถ Release
The rollout of Samsung's One UI 5.0 update has begun today for the Galaxy S22, S22+, and S22 Ultra devices in select regions.
The rollout of One UI 5.0 is expected to continue over the next number of weeks and months, with rollout varying by device and region across 2022.
Today we here at Emojipedia have expanded the selection of languages that can be used to browse and search our site, bringing the total number of supported languages to nineteen.
The new languages that are now supported are as follows:
Amongst the languages listed above are the top five most spoken languages in India - happy ๐ช Diwali to all that celebrate! ๐ฅณ
This also means that this is the first time languages that use non-Latin characters are supported on Emojipedia.
This is the second time we've expanded the number of languages Emojipedia can be used in. Ahead of World Emoji Day 2022 this July, we first introduced support for the following five European languages:
Across the entire site, our users can change their current language via the bottom of our left-hand sticky menu bar on desktop, or the bottom of the burger menu option on mobile devices.
Clicking on the circular icon with a two-letter language code on desktop devices will open a pop-up window where users can change the language they are browsing Emojipedia in.
Changing language from a site page will refresh that page in the newly selected language (e.g. โจ Sparkles in English will update to โจ ้ชไบฎ in Japanese).
Additionally, our search results page now features a prominent "๐ Search in another language" option, which also opens the same language selection pop-up window as the menu bar.
See a translation across any of our eighteen that you believe needs tweaking? Email us via languages@emojipedia.org. ๐ง
Emojipedia now includes the full set of highly-detailed glossy emoji sticker designs that debuted within various Twitter features throughout this year.
Having been teased since early 2021, this full set of emoji designs marks a significant departure from Twitter's long-standing Twemoji emoji set, which has had a flat, block color style since its launch in November 2014.
Above: a selection of different emojis as they appear within the Twitter emoji sticker set.
An important note about this set: at the time of writing this glossy emoji designs are not used within the text of tweets themselves.
Emojis within the text of tweets continue to render with Twemoji designs on Android and PC platforms, and in Apple's native emoji set on Apple-manufactured devices.
Instead, these Twitter Emoji Stickers are available for use within the Twitter image editor tool on Android devices, which can be accessed when a user uploads one or more images to be attached to a tweet within the Twitter mobile app.
Above: the Twitter Emoji Stickers are available for us within the Twitter image editor on an Android device.
Apple devices appear to continue to display the Twemoji 13.1 emoji designs as sticker options.
Above: the stickers available within the Twitter image editor on iPhone remain those from the Twemoji 13.1 design set.
These new glossy emoji sticker designs are also used within Twitter's Status feature. Unlike within the image editing tool, these new stickers are used by the feature across all platforms, including Apple devices.
Above: a tweet from the Financial Times' Dave Lee with the status "๐ถ๏ธ Hot take". Image: The Verge.
The Twitter Status feature allows users to tag tweets with one of several pre-defined statuses consisting of an emoji design and text, such as "โจ That's it, that's the Tweet", "โก Soon", or "๐ถ๏ธ Hot take".
Above: the various available status options, each with an emoji. Image: Jane Manchun Wong.
Upon the Status feature's re-launch in July of this year, these emojis were rendered with the platform's classic Twemoji emoji designs.
These new sticker designs are most comparable to the set currently used by Facebook across both their social networking and messaging platforms, though these new Twitter emoji sticker designs are even more elaborate in their features.
๐จ Design Highlights
Below we have highlighted some of the most interesting designs across these emoji stickers while also detailing several prominent themes within the set.
One unique feature of this emoji set is how most people emojis of different skin tones have subtle differences in how their hair is presented.
Above: the Twitter emoji stickers version of the ๐ง Person, ๐ฉ Woman, and ๐จ Man emojis with slightly different hair designs across their different skin tone options.
Facebook's emoji set has provided a unique hairstyle for a small number of male emojis combined with the ๐ฟ Dark Skin Tone modifier since 2018.
However, the Twitter emoji sticker set includes considerably more instances of hairstyle variations, across the three gender options within the emoji keyboard.
In fact, this design feature is included within the majority of the set's people emojis, including most of the people emojis gesturing and holding professions.
However, several people emojis engaging in an activity or representing a fantasy creature do not have this variation in hairstyles across skin tone modifiers. This is due to the design having some unique additional attribute for the person emoji's hairstyle, such as it being held in a ponytail (e.g. ๐๏ธโโ๏ธ Woman Lifting Weights) or having prominent streaks of grey (e.g. ๐งโโ๏ธ Man Vampire).
Another less-unique note within the people emojis is how this emoji sticker set color-codes the non-gender-specifying emojis within the emoji keyboard.
Unlike the Twemoji emoji designs, non-gender-specifying emojis that don't require any particular clothing or costumes are dressed in grey, akin to how the Apple emoji set most frequently represents non-gender-specific people emojis.
The Twemoji set has non-gender-specific emoji people are usually dressed in orange, like Google's Noto Color Emoji gender-neutral designs.
One further notable feature across these emoji stickers is that many of the emojis' designs are presented at an angle, clearly displaying two sides of the person, creature, or object being represented.
These designs bring to mind the short-lived Facebook Messenger emoji design set, which had all its emojis presented at an angle (albeit in the opposite direction).
Above: a selection of the emoji designs used on Facebook Messenger between June 2016 and September 2017.
Launched in June 2016, the Messenger emoji set was replaced by the main Facebook emoji designs in October 2017.
There are also a variety of easter eggs about Twitter itself across a selection of these new Twitter emoji sticker designs, as first noted by Jane Manchun Wong.
The various ๐งโ๐ป Technologist emojis feature the Twitter logo on the back of their laptop.
Above: the Twemoji emoji sticker designs forย
While the use of the company logo within the ๐งโ๐ป Technologist emojis is not an uncommon design choice - Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, WhatsApp, and JoyPixels all currently do the same - this emoji sticker set features many more instances of Twitter's iconic blue bird silhouette. ย
It is not presently known if or when these glossy and highly-detailed new designs will replace the Twemoji set as Twitter's default emoji designs within tweets themselves.
Following the initial reporting surrounding these new emoji sticker designs earlier this year, a then-employee of Twitter stated on the official Twemoji Github page:
this version won't be coming to the open source version of Twemoji, and we'll continue to maintain the vector version for the open source community.
It is, however, presently unknown whether the expected roadmap for Twitter's emoji sets - both Twemoji and these new glossy sticker designs - has changed following recent developments at the company.
๐ Fleeting Glimpses
As alluded to above, October of this year was not the first time we have seen some of these glossy emoji sticker designs.
From early 2021 onwards, a small number of these emoji designs were beginning to appear in specific Twitter features or materials.
Specifically, several designs of this kind were first seen within a feature-based survey in March of 2021, with two additional accessibility-focused designs (namely ๐ฆพ Mechanical Arm and ๐งโ๐ฆผ Person in Motorized Wheelchair) previewed by the official Twitter Design roughly a week later.
Weโre working with @TwitterA11y to redesign Twemoji to ensure disability is accurately represented and have a couple examples. Our designs will include all gender identities and skin tones.
A small subset of these designs then made their official debut within the stickers section of Twitter's short-lived story-style feature, Fleets.
Notably, the 36 stickers available for use within Fleets were animated, unlike those currently available within Twitter's image editor tool.
Above: a selection of the animated emoji stickers that were available within the Twitter Fleets feature.
While the Fleets feature first launched in November 2020, these animated stickers would only become available in April 2021. Fleets were discontinued in July 2021.
Following the end of Fleets, these designs would re-appear in two other feature releases by Twitter. Firstly, in January of this year, a subset of these static designs was presented as options within a new profile picture selection tool for new Twitter users.
twitter has an emoji profile pic creator tool thingy for new users
Additionally, in August several of these designs' animated incarnations were included in a beta change to the reactions feature within Twitter Spaces, Twitter's live audio conversation feature.
As first reported by Jane Manchun Wong on Twitter, these new Twitter emoji stickers first became available for use in early October 2022, specifically within the
Twitterโs full set of the 3D version of Twemoji โ high fidelity, more expressive, with more details: pic.twitter.com/blg8xpygeN
These designs are also currently used within the platform's Status feature, where an emoji precedes each of the available status options for tweets.
Given that they have been tested within a beta update for Twitter Spaces, it is reasonably likely that animated versions of these designs could replace the existing Twemoji designs as reactions in the near future.
However, as noted above, it is currently unknown whether or not these glossy new designs will end up replacing the long-standing Twemoji designs as Twitter's default emoji design set for Android devices and PCs.
We also do not know if Twitter's long-standing use of Apple's emoji design on iOS and MacOS devices could be open to review as we proceed toward Twitter 2.0, though given historical precedence we would consider this unlikely.
Late last year, Unicode announced that it would be delaying the release of Unicode 16.0, instead opting for a streamlined 15.1 released in 2023. In making this announcement, the future of an Emoji 15.1 was initially unclear, but today Unicode Emoji Subcommittee ChairpersonJennifer Daniel has revealed what this year's emoji list could possibly contain.
Within the latest edition of their excellent newsletter Did Someone Say Emoji?, Daniel reveals that there are currently a total of 578 new sequences proposed for Emoji 15.1.
While this certainly sounds like a lot, Daniel reveals that the majority of these additions will be focused on specifying the direction a particular emoji is facing.
This means that a variety of different emoji which have had their cross-vendor designs converge around facing a specific direction (e.g. ๐ Person Running, ๐ Automobile, ๐ Person Surfing) will have new alternates within Emoji 15.1, allowing users to specify whether or not these emojis should be facing left or right.
While directionality can vary, the tendency across emoji designs is to have the person, creature, or object being depicted facing leftwards (the fintech platform Toss is an outlier in this respect, with their directional designs tending to face right).
Emoji directionality has been an area of consideration for the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee for many years.
In addition to these directionality-focused new emojis, there will be six completely new additions to the emoji keyboard in Emoji 15.1:
Above: the six unique draft emoji candidates for Emoji 15.1, in their possible Noto Color Emoji design. Image: Jennifer Daniel.
Again revealed by Daniel, these will be:
A lime
A mushroom with non-poisonous coloring
A broken chain
A nodding face, to indicate agreement
A face shaking side-to-side, as if to say "no"
A phoenix
Note that the designs shown above are sample designs provided by Daniel, and while these designs are within the Noto Color Emoji style, they are subject to change before their release within the Google-created emoji font.
How are all of these new emojis going to be introduced? Similar to Emoji 12.1 and Emoji 13.1 from 2019 and 2020 respectively, Emoji 15.1 will leverage existing codepoints to render each of its 578 provisional emoji candidates should they be officially approved come September 2023.
For the directional 572 direction-focused provisional candidates, this will likely involve the use of the โก๏ธ Right Arrow (e.g. ๐ Person Running and โก๏ธ Right Arrow will combine to create a new "Person Running Rightwards" emoji sequence with a corresponding design).
Meanwhile, Daniel revealed the following sequences are under consideration for four of the unique provisional candidates:
The Lime will be the first time a non-animal emoji has been given a specific color-based variation within the emoji keyboard. This could mean that the much-lobbied-for White Wine emoji could be on the horizon for an Emoji 16.0 release in 2024, provided a strong enough proposal is submitted next year.
Meanwhile, the composition of the non-poisonous mushroom emoji is less straightforward, though it will almost certainly contain the current ๐ Mushroom, which has a white-spotted red cap and stem associated with the poisonous fly agaric mushroom.
Release
Currently, each of the 578 proposed emojis (572 new direction sequences for existing emojis and 6 unique concepts comprised of ZWJ sequences) are provisional emoji candidates.
They will be deliberated further by the members of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee and the Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) during 2023 before all or a subset of these emoji concepts are given draft emoji status.
There will then be further considerations made prior to the official release of Emoji 15.1 in September 2023 alongside Unicode 15.1, at which time either all or a subset of the draft emojis will be officially approved for inclusion with emoji keyboards across the globe.
Once approved by Unicode, however, it is the responsibility of the various emoji vendors (e.g. Apple, Google, Samsung) to implement their own incarnations of each of these approved emoji concepts, meaning that approved emojis can take several months to appear within the keyboards of iPhone and Android devices.
Take last year's Emoji 15.0. While approved in September 2022, only select Samsung devices and Gmail have implemented the likes of ๐ซจ Shaking Face, ๐ซ Moose, and the plain ๐ฉท Pink Heart emoji, though the latest beta releases of Android 13 and WhatsApp for Android do also include Emoji 15.0 support.
We're therefore still quite a while away from seeing a "Person Running Rightwards" or the Phoenix emoji on our emoji keyboards, but at least we have confirmation that there will indeed be new emojis approved in 2023.
