3 ms·

This serves as a reminder that the Unicode standard is remarkable US centric at times. Where's the guy flipping the bottom of his chin? Where's whatever the equ

• robgough 11y ago
  Interesting point. Why isn't the unicode standard just "obscene hand gesture" (or similar?) and then localisation can take care of the rest?
  • jerf 11y ago
    I pulled open the standard as linked by cnvogel and expected to see what is in a sense the exact opposite... a list of all vaguely practical hand gestures, with the middle-finger merely one in a sea of gestures. While it is in the middle of some other more generic gestures, some of which definitely have obscene connotations in some cultures [1], it's less exhaustive than I've come to expect from Unicode. See also [2] which lists some cultural middle-finger equivalents, some of which show up in the Unicode list, or in the case of 1F594 ("peace") easily can if the icon designer is not careful. (In fact I think the Unicode sheet shows the obscene-in-the-UK variant.) I sort of expected to be able to make a crack about it being a bit culturally imperialist not to include the middle finger just because the US considers it obscene, but instead it stands out more than I expected, so I can't. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-ok#Negative_connotation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-ok#Negative_connotation [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_finger#Similar_gestures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_finger#Similar_gestures
• kaolinite 11y ago
  Emoji is actually more Japan centric, hence the numerous sushi emoji, bento box emoji and various other Japanese items.
  • moomin 11y ago
    Yeah, that's the DoCoMo legacy shining through.