Thank you for publishing this analysis of the popularity of new emoji characters announced by @Unicode for 2020, @emojipedia, in this blog post written by @jeremyburge.
The transgender pride flag emoji is the second most popular in this batch, eclipsing 115 other emojis that were also approved.
A cool innovation story
This is a cool (and somewhat typical) innovation story.
These data are so interesting because when the transgender pride flag emoji character was proposed in 2016, it was ignored by Unicode.
When we re-proposed it in 2017, we received this response 6 months later:
Members would like to see better dataUnicode consortium email, sent by anonymous sender
Which caused us (me) to do a deep dive to prove that a symbol like this would be used/received by the world.
We did this, even though we knew, saw, and experienced everywhere that this symbol is widely used, distinctive, and has special importance to our communities. Here’s one of many examples.
Feel free to read about the saga in this, the most documented emoji proposal in human history.
It now turns out, 4 years later, this symbol is welcomed by the world.
This is quite the contrast from what Unicode would have has us believe about the relevancy of a symbol like this. The challenges that Unicode itself faces are detailed quite well in this feature-length documentary about this and other symbols – yes, a whole documentary.
Reinforcing our job as allies
When transgender or gender non-conforming people are being told that they don’t matter, my responsibility is to remind them that they’ve been lied to.
Enjoy the new character, coming to every digital device worldwide soon 🙂 .
Of the 117 new emojis approved last month, Pinched Fingers, Transgender Flag, and Smiling Face With Tear were the most popular on social media. Least popular? Bucket, Placard, and Elevator. Above: Engagement on social media for new emojis announced last month. Image: Emojipedia.An analysis of new emoji popularity has