[PurpleFoxy]

Because Unicode emoji started out with a bunch of crap they couldn’t ever say no to new proposals because someone will say “why do we need a man levitating emoji and not skin tone modifiers?” And while we are at it, we need a woman levitating and gender neutral person levitating.

[enriquto]

How do you know if they are men or women? Just because of their hair? That's pretty non-inclusive!

[klyrs]

The emoji is literally named "Man in Business Suit Levitating" by the unicode consortium

[throw0101a]

> Because Unicode emoji started out with

It started out with the 'base' symbols of a bunch of Japanese mobile carriers:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoji#The_origin_of_emoji_pict...

If they simply stuck with supporting those for legacy reasons, then things would have been fine. But no line in the sand was drawn.

IMHO there should be a moratorium for (say) five years to let things settle, and see new ones are actually needed, or if it's just inertia driving recent additions.

[ceejayoz]

Why? What's the downside to having a bunch?

[yummypaint]

I can't think of one. There are already far too many of them to view at once on a phone, so adding more doesn't make things much more disorganized. Storage capabilities also grow faster than the standard adds new symbols.

Frankly I think it's a bad look when people suddenly become very passionate about opposing updates once they are reminded of the existence of dark skinned emojis. They're just silly little drawings, people. If someone is so upset by others being able to send silly little drawings that vaguely resemble themselves, they should do some introspecting.

[throw0101a]

What problem does adding all of these random 'hieroglyphs' solve? We have:

* Grinning Face {, Big Eyes, Smiling Eyes, Sweat}

* (Slightly) Smiling Face {, Smiling Eyes, Halo, Hearts, Heart-Eyes}

* (Wo)man {,Bald, Red Hair, Curly Hair, White Hair, Blond Hair}

* Family: {{,M,W}, {M,W}, {,B,G}[1-2] }

* Leg, Foot, Ear (with Hearing Aide), Nose, Brain, Longs, Tooth, Bone, Eye(s), Tongue, Mouth

* {, Man, Woman} {Superhero, Supervillain, Mage, Fairy, Vampire, Elf, Genie, Zombie}

How many combinations / permutations do we need?

* https://emojipedia.org/people/

[ceejayoz]

> What problem does adding all of these random 'hieroglyphs' solve?

That's a dodge. You proposed a five year moratorium on new emoji. I'm asking what harm is caused by these that justifies that.

"I personally find them pointless" isn't a great reason to deny the folks who clearly find proposing and implementing them to be worthwhile.

(Side note: "Update your device to get the new emoji" is a great way to get folks doing their security patching regularly.)

[throw0101a]

Time used to implement all of these things is time not spent working on more 'useful' things. Like, from a comment up-thread, languages and scripts that people use in their daily lives:

* https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/i-can-text-you-a-pile-of...