How Did This Emoji Ever Get Approved

Recently, there was talk of the new Apple emoji. Wow, iOS 26. 4 emoji. Oh, wow, look at that new emoji. And yes, these are new emoji available on iOS, and these are from Apple, but these are Apple's drawing of the emoji editions in the Unicode 17 standard. It actually has nothing to do with Apple. And new emoji don't just get added out of thin air. They're not just like invented by nobody. They actually do go through a whole documented procedure on how to submit emoji, the proposal, all of this fun stuff. And the fun thing is, my understanding is basically anyone can propose a new emoji. As long as you format the proposal in the right way, you can have an emoji be created. Now, is it going to be accepted? Probably not, as there is a lot, a lot of proposals. This page loads really slowly, and it's probably not going to load by the time that I finish talking, but there is probably a good couple, uh, at least couple hundred just on this page. And this is the main 17. 0 page. Anything for the older standards do get archived into an older version of the page. And this has a lot of the same additions as well, because there's a lot of proposals that get carried over from considerably older versions. Now, since a lot of people are having fun with the new emoji, notably, um, notably this one here, I thought it'd be fun to go and actually have a look at the proposal documents and look at the justification for why some of these are even being created. Because the justification to the Unicode consortium and the actual way these things are going to be used are very, very different. Let's start with the one that everybody is talking about and everyone is having fun with. And obviously, it's really stupid, and I don't know how it actually finally got added into the standard. But we have from Jennifer Daniel on July 8th, 2024, inflatable face emoji. Since this is a pretty standard format, a lot of this is going to be boilerplate stuff that we don't really care to read, like where you would sort it in an emoji sorter, like the size of the emoji or different things, some, like, keywords for how you might find it, things like that. So I'm going to jump around to the fun parts. One of those parts is the expected use. Since 2020, the emoji has appeared in Android keyboards and is shared in all apps that support stickers via Emoji Kitchen. It is the eighth most popular drawing in the experience available in Google search, indicating that this expression could perform well over median once included in the Unicode standard. And in every single one of these, they include Google Trends for how popular this could possibly be. Why it is being compared with Elephant, I actually don't know because the document doesn't actually explain it. But it's being compared with Elephant. Now, the fun part is they also have to include how someone might use this emoji. In what sort of context would you want the inflatable face emoji? Now, you know, and I know, how people will actually use it and how people have used it as a sticker. But we have to be family friendly here. Inflate implies expanding by introduction of air or something insubstantium and suggests a vulnerability to sudden collapse. Naturally, this is a comical trope and impossible to do in real life unless you happen to be a puffer fish. So, surprise. Excuse me? Inflated face. Boss man laughing his own joke. Scared. Oh no. Use in sequence with other emoji. Inflatable face is capable of conveying a range of ideas beyond the examples cited in section two. Disposal. Sports ball. Deflating and popping. Deflating and disappearing. And the one that's far more likely to be used as a reaction. Kissy, kissy. Oh, look at this. You got your cute little inflatable face. Now, this is a lot more in line with how it's going to be used. Now, the way you actually use it is there's like an eggplant here or something else like that. That's how it actually works. Breaking new ground. Illustration is a rich medium that affords us the ability to deviate and push beyond reality rather than be confined to the real world. A few smiley emoji embrace materiality as a means of expression, cartoonification, or include contextual elements that deviate from physical reality. A non-exhaustive list include all of these ones here.

Inflatable face is both visually and conceptually different from these emoji that expresses vulnerability, tension, and flexibility. It is a common trope found in cartoony, superheroic-type comics which appear all around the world at this point. There's also evidence of its use in manga. See Naruto and Sailor Moon examples in section C which have literally nothing to do with the inflatable face emoji. and being inflatable are not the same thing. We know that. You know that. We all know that. Also, she's not even inflated here. She's just wearing a big tennis ball. Oh, so there's certainly some other inflation content you could have used here. If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's okay. You don't need to know. Selection factors exclusion. These are things where if it meets any of these criteria, it doesn't really fit in being an emoji. Overly specific. This design is iconic and used in advertising, art, anime, film, and in literature. It is a visual trope that is effective at communicating a remarkably broad range of things including surprise turning into a bowl, being filled with hot air, aka light, or filled with water, aka heavy and bloated, etc. It does so by not being overly specific. It is not open-ended. It is not part of a set of similar items that result in more emoji proposals. So whilst these are the emoji people are talking about and there's this other one here, there's also, uh, there's also this. here is the full list of emoji added for 17. 0 and you might notice that, uh, most of these are the same emoji. So what they did is they added skin tone variants for people with bunny ears and the problem with that is it's people not a person. So it is two people. each of these emoji are the skin tone variants for both of the people. Also they have it gendered. So it is skin tone variants and gendered. That adds a lot of new additions and they also have the exact same thing with people wrestling. I don't know why they ever let emoji with two people involved in them ever be added to the standard. All this does is create a nightmare for anyone making an emoji font. So let's go to the next one. Let's go to my personal favorite. The nondescript hairy creature. Now when this was being proposed obviously it wasn't being called hairy creature. It was going by the name Bigfoot. Hairy creature though that makes it a lot more um we'll say open-ended in how you can use it. Bigfoot is a mythological creature of many names across many parts of the world from the swamps of the southeastern United States known there as a skunk ape to the peaks of Asia where it's referenced as a yeti. Bigfoot continues to reverberate itself and its infamy in both our culture media and tourism. Many countries states and cities tout being the home of Bigfoot while countless movies, shows and even concerts centre around this elusive beast. There is even a dedicated annual convention centered solely around Mr. Squatch claimed to have been captured on camera countless times. Its most famous glimpse came from the Patterson-Gimlin film which depicts the large ape-like figure walking into the woods. This film is where its iconic stance and gait as shown in the Bigfoot emoji being proposed comes from. That same silhouette is now used throughout print media making its presence on stickers, advertisements, even used in memes on the internet and movies. But Bigfoot doesn't just represent the gentle giant. The creature's scarcity has created a legend of its own that has only grown its recognition. Breeding a multitude of hoaxes, gimmicks, and cultural fascination. Fandom only continues to rise as the internet breeds more fuel to the proverbial fire. End of the crypto-zoological cast. The creature's Bigfoot continues to remain king. And here we just have a bunch of examples of Bigfoot and Sasquatches and Yetis and various things. This is honestly my favorite part of all of the proposals. The fact they have to show examples of it being used in other media, various forms. And again, the Google trends. They also were using Bing search at one point which was showing total count. I assume elephant is just like the standard comparison point because I see this so often. Anyway, use in sequence.

How would one actually use the emoji? Where are you? Hairy creature thinking emoji. I'm on my way. Hairy creature cloud, I guess to indicate speed. It's a mystery. Alien. Hairy creature. I lost my keys. And I guess this is implying that Bigfoot stole the keys. Again, eggplant emoji. Hairy creature. Or, if you want to be representative, peach. Hairy creature. Whatever you're up to. The Bigfoot emoji stands on its own representing a symbol of folklore that feels absent from the current fantasy creature lineup. While the closest shape resemblance could be akin to person walking or person running, the Bigfoot emoji embodies a culture and personality that extends beyond the literal use of the aforementioned existing options. I love how a lot of these are just like written in the most extravagant, I'm trying to fill out my word count for an English essay kind of way. There's no reason to write like this, but I love it nonetheless. What's crazy with this one is this proposal sat open for five years before actually being added and at the time there wasn't a big desire to add it. I don't actually know why they finally said let's go and do it, but what I can say is I am happy that we're going to see it. Now let's go to an even older proposal, one that was also added for 17. 0 and one that you should immediately know how it's going to be used. The orca emoji. Hmm. All of us know what an orca or a killer whale is, so let's go to the multiple usages. These are incredibly tame. Literal reference to the animal, reference to marine wildlife, reference to endangered wildlife, reference to marine mammal parks, which orcas are usually its main attraction. Cultural references such as Willy from Free Willy. Do you know what Willy means in Australia? Because I feel like this might be used for a bit of Free Willy. Maybe some hairy creature and an orca. Orca, you know, it's big, it's black, we know how it's going to be used. Orcas are not a transient symbol, as they've been on Earth for about 11 million years. That's true. Yep, orcas have been around for quite a bit. The only risk of orca becoming an unused symbol is in case of extinction. Well, even in the case of that, people would still use a Tasmanian tiger emoji. Just because it goes extinct doesn't mean people would just stop using it. There are other emoji added for 17. 0, not the full list here. This one here, like the falling debris or the trombone or the fight cloud or the treasure chest. These are neat, but these are like your pretty standard sort of emoji. I don't think they're anywhere near as interesting. Personally, hairy creature is my favorite new addition, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot of use of hairy creature. Inflatable face, I love as well. It's just such an obvious pick as a favorite, though. Either way, these three are going to see a lot of use, and I have no doubt about that whatsoever. Yeah. So if you want to have some fun, I do recommend actually going and just having a look at some of the other proposals. All of them can be found online. You can go back through earlier Unicode standards and see the exact emoji they were added for that version and the justification for why they were, and you'll have some fun, because they're all written in such a ridiculous, over-exaggerated, English major kind of way, and I love it. Anyway, if you liked the video, go like the video, go subscribe as well, and let me know your thoughts down below. What is your favorite emoji? Maybe that was added in 17. 0, but what's your favorite emoji overall? I'd love to know. So, if you really liked the video, and you want to become one of these amazing people over here, check out the Patreon SubscribeStar, Liberapay linked in the description down below. That's going to be it for me, and... I feel bad for emoji font creators. You've got so much nonsense to deal with.