OS X 10.10.3 and iOS 8.3 Beta 2 Updates Introduce New Emoji, Skin Tone Modifiers

[sbailey4]

Err, no. They aren't white, they're Asian. Emoji originated in Japan.

So all these are white or Asian? Who knew!


I always thought the yellow smileys were just fine or a draft beer emoji.

 

[xionxiox]

The point is that they do not have a race... and it's never white. "White" isn't even a race. Emoji's aren't human. If an emoji is light-skinned, who gives a rats ass? Do you cry at night because Mario and Luigi are "too Italian"?

It's like arguing that a lizard is green. It's such nonsense.

nationality!=race

 

[maflynn]

Dubious benefit to you, likely a white male in his 20s

Nope sorry, you have my demographics incorrect.

 

[Gym Hellwig]

The point is why is white always the default? I've worked in publishing for too many years and many writers will never mention a character's race—if he or she is white. But if a character is black or nonwhite, race is listed as a characteristic. It's interesting how white characters are spared that.

I've been reading far longer than you've been in publishing. If you are reading a book written by a white author living in a white country, there is the rational assumption that the characters will also be white unless stated otherwise. Ditto for Japanese authors, Chinese authors, Russian authors, etc. If you are reading Tolstoy and the setting is Russia, you don't need to be told that the characters are ethnic Russians.

I suggest you try reading some books from non-white authors. White characters are very much described as "white" in those books.

 

[mozumder]

man white people go INSANE when other races are accommodated..

"HOW DARE PEOPLE ACKNOWLEDGE THESE OTHER RACES!!"

lol

 

[Planey28]

Diversity my ass, emojis are so great because they are actually free from racial influences, or actually, have been now.

The yellow ones yes. The ones depicting white people, no.

 

[CalWizrd]

...I can't speak for the poster you are referring to...

Actually, my skin tone is fairly close to the sample here. Don't think I've ever met someone who is "white".

 

[scottsjack]

This further illustrates how stupid Apple has gotten under the leadership of T.C. What next, gay emoji? Religion of Peace emoji?

 

[dannyyankou]

I see this is pretty high up in Apple's priority, I kind of wished that they spent their liimited time and energy fixing the existing bugs instead.

Sigh...

http://9to5mac.com/2015/02/09/apple...ation-focus-after-years-of-feature-additions/

http://9to5mac.com/2015/02/20/ios-9-public-beta/

http://9to5mac.com/2015/02/23/report-apple-poaching-samsung-engineers-w-chip-battery-expertise/

 

[kds1]

Um...the default emojis are yellow or white. that's not what I consider free of "racial influence"

You're joking right? Emoji's are cartoon characters..you know, yellow smiley faces and all?????

1970's Smiley Faces

 

[Salty Pirate]

The real question is are we gonna get the "finger" emoji?

 

[arefbe]

That's right. Let's get the Important Stuff out of the way!

 

[gluckett]

Why are there no Siamese cats?

 

[harrisondavies]

Its great to see them focussing on emoji's and not actually fixing the actual laggy cr*p that is iOS 8 on an iPhone 6 Plus.

 

[phillipduran]

I'd rather just see one emoji style. Grey, black, white, yellow, brown, green, doesn't matter. Just have one. It could even be all of those colors patched together.

I have the feeling this change is not going to have the results they think it is going to have.

"Hey so and so, why aren't you using the yellow emoji? Are you not one of us?"

"I see you're still using the white emoji, what's up with that?"

Ugh, we will see, but from what I know of the internet. . . this isn't going to end well.

 

[phillipduran]

How is this political?

Politics, Religion, Social Issues. Did someone say it was political?

 

[doelcm82]

Actually, my skin tone is fairly close to the sample here. Don't think I've ever met someone who is "white".

That's pretty close to the color of many of these emojis:

Were your parents emojis also?

 

[lunarworks]

I wonder how all the people overreacting in this thread feel about the fact that their Mac can display virtually any language in the world.

"Why should Apple support Chinese writing? They can just type their words out in the roman alphabet! Or learn English!"

 

[CalWizrd]

That's pretty close to the color of many of these emojis:

Image

Were your parents emojis also?

1. Lucky me
2. Maybe. Perhaps I didn't look closely enough.

 

[MacSlut]

Err, no. They aren't white, they're Asian. Emoji originated in Japan.

How many Asians do you know who look like this (blonde hair, blue eyes, pale white skin): #

While Emoji originated in Japan, NTT DoCoMo only had 176 symbols and none of them were the white characters. This didn't come into place until Google and Apple requested Emojis be encoded into the Unicode standard, and we now have 722, with only 114 mapping to the old characters.

Of those 722, almost all are either white skinned, or non-racial. Of the white-skinned ones, there are no non-racial counterparts.

For those complaining that Apple has bigger things to worry about. Yes, sure, they do. But this isn't an engineering issue. Heck, it's not even a design issue. It's consuming time from Apple's representatives to the Unicode Technical Committee, ISO/IEC. Now, knowing this, do you have something better for them to be doing?

I think it's beyond funny that people are actually whining about this being done. The amount of time spent on the posts I've seen have probably consumed more time than Apple will spend on the engineering of this.

Really, if you're a white hetero male and are upset that other races, sexes and orientations are being represented... what really are you whining about?

 

[phillipduran]

Emoji are a terrible idea, culturally. We have a wonderful system of language that we can use to express concepts with any degree of precision desired. It is idiotic to instead use a picture based language that only allows for ambiguity. The popularity of emoji is a step backwards for society.

I've witnessed many examples of people reading messages in the wrong "voice". Emojis help to convey tone or intent in a message. They can be real useful in many situations. Yes, I can a few more paragraphs in a text message to make sure my intent is understood, or I can put a smiley next to !@#!# off when I'm joking with a friend so he gets that I'm joking with him. I don't think that is a step backwards, it's a useful tool to be used in the right situation.

 

[iSee]

I disagree, there are some very basic bugs that need to be addressed. Apple does not have huge corps of programmers and designers. Its clear those people are working on other things besides the bugs otherwise some of the bugs that have existed since 10.10 rolled out would be addressed.

Adding new features at the expense of bug fixes is one thing, adding features of dubious benefit is even more frustrating.

It simply doesn't make sense to suggest that Apple has to choose between adding support for a new Unicode standard and fixing bugs. Is it really so hard to see that they are in the position to do both?

 

[phillipduran]

No ginger emoji? Downs emoji? Albino emoji? Missing eye emoji? Orthodontics emoji? Cleft pallet emoji?

An excellent example of why this whole thing is going to have the wrong result. Add just a few and the result is exclusion of the others that didn't make the cut.

But that's OK, those others aren't a part of the master emoji color plan. Just second class emotes IMO.

 

[Albright]

This thread is stupid, but I'm curious… Can anyone with the beta clarify how this feature works with emoji with more than one people in them, like # or # or, of course, #? Do all the characters end up still having the same tone?

 

[lunarworks]

I can't tell what there's more of in this thread: Blatant racism, or socially inept pedantry.

1) Does multi-racial emoji have a negative effect on your life?

No.

2) Does multi-racial emoji have a positive effect on other people's lives?

Yes.

So what's the problem?