5 ms·

I don't think it's racist, but I do find it a little odd when someone takes the time to purposefully select a non-default skin tone. As a white person, it feels

by gundmc 5y ago

I don't think it's racist, but I do find it a little odd when someone takes the time to purposefully select a non-default skin tone. As a white person, it feels weird to go out of my way to send a white emoji and feels even weirder to use a black or brown emoji. I'm all for inclusion, but it's not like anyone's skin is the yellow color of the default faces.

avhception 5y ago
It's even weirder with some apps that seem to default on the black or brown emojis instead of the yellow ones. I guess they try to be extra-inclusive, BLM and all that? Dunno, but as a white person I sent the "wrong" skin color by accident multiple times and kept wondering what this actually means. Am I appropriating a skin color? Am I being extra inclusive? I just wish we would have kept real skin colors out of the emojis.
iainmerrick 5y ago
I'm all for inclusion, but it's not like anyone's skin is the yellow color of the default faces. Instinctively I agree with you, but: does that yellow color remind you of the Simpsons? On that show, the white people are yellow but the brown people are brown. The yellow isn’t really neutral.
- niceairport 5y ago
  Ah yes, the Simpsons, the source of truth for all things life.
- 1337shadow 5y ago
  Exactly why I want Cyan, but it's not available, I feel excluded, apparently the community needs to be more inclusive to people who want to identify with Cyan colored emojis.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Jokes aside, the programmer in me wonders why there are individual skin tone code points in the first place, instead of generic (colorless) "skin tone modifier", which would then be followed by a color codepoint from a palette of named colors, say 256 of those. So I'd write: Rightward Hand + Generic Skin Tone + Green, ZJW, Leftward Hand + Generic Skin Tone + Blue, to express a handshake between an Orion and an Andorian. Or, if 256 colors are not enough, you could write a combination of RGBA Color Modifier + eight characters in [0-9A-Fa-F] range... This would also help with hair colors and bunch of other stuff that has separate code points at the moment. I have a feeling we'll end up with an approximation of this at some point, maybe a decade from now.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  > On [the Simpsons], the white people are yellow but the brown people are brown. To be fair, the asians are yellow in the Simpsons :) [1]. [1] https://tokyofox.net/2015/02/13/japan-related-references-in-the-simpsons/ https://tokyofox.net/2015/02/13/japan-related-references-in-... I'm truly disappointed the woke haven't pursued this.
  - iainmerrick 5y ago
    What kind of response are you hoping for?
sildur 5y ago
I see it like customizing player aspect in video games.
Blikkentrekker 5y ago
> I'm all for inclusion, but it's not like anyone's skin is the yellow color of the default faces. Have you ever noticed how in The Simpsons all the “white” characters have an unrealistic skin tone in a primary color as well as often unrealistic hair textures and colors but all the other races have realistic skin tones and hair textures and colors for their races? There's also a rather interesting cultural difference in this. U.S.A. viewers often wonder why Japanese cartoon characters look what they consider “white”, whereas Japanese viewers consider them what they consider “yellow”. The lesson to be learned from this is that a not insignificant number, perhaps majority, of viewers replaces “nonrealism” with what it considers to be the default, unmarked expectation of the world. For U.S.A.-men, that is “white”, for Japanmen, that is “yellow”. It doesn't so much seem to be one's own “race” but the “race” one most frequently encounters in life, as U.S.A.-men of all “races” seem to do so. The end result is that for many, the amber skin tone is not true neutral territory, even though objectively speaking it is, for they perceive it as replaceable with whatever race is the most frequent in their milieu. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ek5MqILXIAEdC3k.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ek5MqILXIAEdC3k.jpg This image is most interesting and ironic to me. The auctor of said image seems to strongly imply that the stick figures that has the same color as the background are “white”, but it is not even clear whether they are transparent or simply the same, unnatural color as the background, whereas the other characters have a realistic, plausible human skin tone rather than a primary color such as perfect black. The “white” characters are not a realistic hue of beige, for instance. — I find such to have an interesting influence on the discussion, in that I often see that some people seem to perceive fictional characters that are raceless, due to for instance being of alien origin, to essentially have the “race” they consider the unmarked default of their milieu. In particular, I had a discussion once where there was complaint about “changing the race” of the character of Tyrael. This character is a angel, who like all angels in that universe is faceless, nothing of his body but a vague humanoid shape clad in full body armor was ever shown, but when he was given human form, he had to be given such human features as a gender and a race, so they choose a “black adult male”, and some complaint that his “race was changed”; it seems to me that the character that had no race, age, or gender was consider a “white adult male” by them, which is the unmarked default in their milieu, that which they most frequently see and interact with.
- 5y ago

by gundmc 5y ago

avhception 5y ago

It's even weirder with some apps that seem to default on the black or brown emojis instead of the yellow ones. I guess they try to be extra-inclusive, BLM and all that? Dunno, but as a white person I sent the "wrong" skin color by accident multiple times and kept wondering what this actually means. Am I appropriating a skin color? Am I being extra inclusive? I just wish we would have kept real skin colors out of the emojis.

iainmerrick 5y ago

I'm all for inclusion, but it's not like anyone's skin is the yellow color of the default faces. Instinctively I agree with you, but: does that yellow color remind you of the Simpsons? On that show, the white people are yellow but the brown people are brown. The yellow isn’t really neutral.

niceairport 5y ago
Ah yes, the Simpsons, the source of truth for all things life.
1337shadow 5y ago
Exactly why I want Cyan, but it's not available, I feel excluded, apparently the community needs to be more inclusive to people who want to identify with Cyan colored emojis.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Jokes aside, the programmer in me wonders why there are individual skin tone code points in the first place, instead of generic (colorless) "skin tone modifier", which would then be followed by a color codepoint from a palette of named colors, say 256 of those. So I'd write: Rightward Hand + Generic Skin Tone + Green, ZJW, Leftward Hand + Generic Skin Tone + Blue, to express a handshake between an Orion and an Andorian. Or, if 256 colors are not enough, you could write a combination of RGBA Color Modifier + eight characters in [0-9A-Fa-F] range... This would also help with hair colors and bunch of other stuff that has separate code points at the moment. I have a feeling we'll end up with an approximation of this at some point, maybe a decade from now.
throwaway210222 5y ago
> On [the Simpsons], the white people are yellow but the brown people are brown. To be fair, the asians are yellow in the Simpsons :) [1]. [1] https://tokyofox.net/2015/02/13/japan-related-references-in-the-simpsons/ https://tokyofox.net/2015/02/13/japan-related-references-in-... I'm truly disappointed the woke haven't pursued this.
- iainmerrick 5y ago
  What kind of response are you hoping for?

sildur 5y ago

I see it like customizing player aspect in video games.

Blikkentrekker 5y ago

> I'm all for inclusion, but it's not like anyone's skin is the yellow color of the default faces. Have you ever noticed how in The Simpsons all the “white” characters have an unrealistic skin tone in a primary color as well as often unrealistic hair textures and colors but all the other races have realistic skin tones and hair textures and colors for their races? There's also a rather interesting cultural difference in this. U.S.A. viewers often wonder why Japanese cartoon characters look what they consider “white”, whereas Japanese viewers consider them what they consider “yellow”. The lesson to be learned from this is that a not insignificant number, perhaps majority, of viewers replaces “nonrealism” with what it considers to be the default, unmarked expectation of the world. For U.S.A.-men, that is “white”, for Japanmen, that is “yellow”. It doesn't so much seem to be one's own “race” but the “race” one most frequently encounters in life, as U.S.A.-men of all “races” seem to do so. The end result is that for many, the amber skin tone is not true neutral territory, even though objectively speaking it is, for they perceive it as replaceable with whatever race is the most frequent in their milieu. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ek5MqILXIAEdC3k.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ek5MqILXIAEdC3k.jpg This image is most interesting and ironic to me. The auctor of said image seems to strongly imply that the stick figures that has the same color as the background are “white”, but it is not even clear whether they are transparent or simply the same, unnatural color as the background, whereas the other characters have a realistic, plausible human skin tone rather than a primary color such as perfect black. The “white” characters are not a realistic hue of beige, for instance. — I find such to have an interesting influence on the discussion, in that I often see that some people seem to perceive fictional characters that are raceless, due to for instance being of alien origin, to essentially have the “race” they consider the unmarked default of their milieu. In particular, I had a discussion once where there was complaint about “changing the race” of the character of Tyrael. This character is a angel, who like all angels in that universe is faceless, nothing of his body but a vague humanoid shape clad in full body armor was ever shown, but when he was given human form, he had to be given such human features as a gender and a race, so they choose a “black adult male”, and some complaint that his “race was changed”; it seems to me that the character that had no race, age, or gender was consider a “white adult male” by them, which is the unmarked default in their milieu, that which they most frequently see and interact with.

5y ago