Emoji In Progress

And a happy one-year CineNerdsary!

Jennifer Daniel, chair of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee, reported the other day on the next wave of emoji likely to reach your devices in the next year and change. But this isn’t like one of those dictionary updates, where Merriam-Webster is eager to show off its linguistic variety with 70-odd new words.

Upon reflecting on how emoji are used, the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee (ESC) has entered a new era where the primary way for emoji to move forward is not merely to add more of them to the Unicode Standard, but to consider how the ones added provide the most linguistic flexibility. As a result, the ESC approves fewer and fewer emoji proposals every year.

Here, then, are the seven approved in the latest round. There’s one for each major emoji category, or at least such categories as the subcommittee defines them.

The “face with bags under eyes” feels long overdue. I can imagine a bunch of situations it’d be useful, not only when Janice is working late and I want to (humorously) urge her home, but also when something makes me feel exhausted, like reading political news.

I can see using “fingerprint” when something strikes me as unique to the individual who made it, like the stylistic tics I’d associate with Stephen King or Jack Kirby. It could also relate to crime-solving in a cheeky way, as in “I *will* find out which of you goobers Photoshopped my head onto Jack Black’s body” [fingerprint emoji]

When it comes to food and drink emoji, I can never get enough. I use them to make (and approve of) meal suggestions. Still, I have to admit there are a lot of these already; the existing emoji system foiled my first few attempts to “stump” it. There’s a pho emoji! We could use a special emoji for impossible burgers and/or other meta-meat, though. Maybe just the burger emoji, but green?

A leafless tree says “winter,” “barrenness,” and maybe “time to rake.” I feel it could add an extra pang to the work of any high-school poet.

Daniel talks about the harp’s “political, sporting, corporate, and religious symbolism.” For me, the religious symbolism echoes strongest. I feel like users who’ve never gone to church will still appreciate how the emoji pairs with “That movie sent me to heaven” and “Can’t talk now, I’m dead.”

Her thoughts on the last two emoji are worth transcribing directly:

Shovel isn’t just another noun — sure, yes, it’s a tool commonly found in your shed — in our keyboards, however, it’s also a verb. Digging yourself out of a hole, digging yourself into a hole, shoveling 💩, it does it all. But wait, there’s more. Splatter is one of those stealth emoji that when you look at you might be thinking, “really, another sex emoji?” (To be honest, show me someone who doesn’t think an emoji is a sex emoji and I’ll show you someone who lacks imagination). Splatter is a spill. Splatter is expressive. Splatter is the ultimate soft emoji —  a perfect counterpoint to collision 💥 the sharpest of sharp shapes. One might even say, splatter is the bouba to collision’s kiki.

I appreciate that Daniel is this much in touch with language as it is used. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine the emoji consortium as a group of fussy Academie Francaise-types who’d be like, “Wait, they use the eggplant emoji…for that?!”

I’d say “shovel” could also be helpful with concepts like “shovel-ready” and “let’s get to work,” whereas splatter gets across the otherwise difficult concept of “mess.” We can all visualize a mess, but “messy” means “complicated,” and emoji are simple.

Not a bad pick in the bunch, really. But it does seem like even with the thousands already available, there’s room in this update for more than seven. As a lover of comics and crosswords, I’d love to see those ideas emojified. A crossword-grid-type emoji could also represent the various word games online, most of which use a grid format.

Speaking of which: Happy one-year anniversary, Cine2Nerdle!

Tomorrow: The crossword subgenre that led to the Ubercross V!