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> its color pallet and disproportionate human forms makes it feel universal So we went from having Homer Simpson universal-color emojis, to a pallet of specifi

> its color pallet and disproportionate human forms makes it feel universal So we went from having Homer Simpson universal-color emojis, to a pallet of specific-color emojis, to be more inclusive. And then switched from stock photos of diverse people, to Homer Simpson cartoons, to be more universal. We're just making this all up from year to year, aren't we?

cpmsmith 5y ago
Not exactly – the "Homer Simpson" yellow emoji came after the initial (Apple) emoji font, which just had all the humans looking white, with no other options.
- userbinator 5y ago
  Long before non-Japanese started calling them "emoji", we had "smilies" and they were yellow.
  - ectopod 5y ago
    Yes. PhpBB and my Nokia feature phone have had yellow smilies since before iPhones were a thing.
  - wellthisisgreat 5y ago
    This is accurate. https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/smiley-face-history-thumbnail.jpg https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/smiley...
- nostromo 5y ago
  This is false. The first emojis were Japanese in origin and were the first to use yellow faces. Apple copied the existing style from the Japanese illustrations.
- tomjakubowski 5y ago
  This is untrue. Not that any of them look like Simpsons characters, but the only emoji option on iOS for like five years was the yellow-shaded cartoon face. It's still the default skin tone in most emoji sets. https://emojipedia.org/emoji-1.0/ https://emojipedia.org/emoji-1.0/
  - cpmsmith 5y ago
    The cartoon faces have always been yellow, but the human ones, e.g. hands or gendered faces, were not until 2015 (on iOS). https://emojipedia.org/apple/iphone-os-2.2/ https://emojipedia.org/apple/iphone-os-2.2/ There was a lot of discourse about it at the time. https://www.fastcompany.com/3016256/are-emojis-racist https://www.fastcompany.com/3016256/are-emojis-racist
ziml77 5y ago
The companies need to represent everyone, individuals want to represent themselves. There is no conflict here.

cpmsmith 5y ago

Not exactly – the "Homer Simpson" yellow emoji came after the initial (Apple) emoji font, which just had all the humans looking white, with no other options.

userbinator 5y ago
Long before non-Japanese started calling them "emoji", we had "smilies" and they were yellow.
- ectopod 5y ago
  Yes. PhpBB and my Nokia feature phone have had yellow smilies since before iPhones were a thing.
- wellthisisgreat 5y ago
  This is accurate. https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/smiley-face-history-thumbnail.jpg https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/smiley...
nostromo 5y ago
This is false. The first emojis were Japanese in origin and were the first to use yellow faces. Apple copied the existing style from the Japanese illustrations.
tomjakubowski 5y ago
This is untrue. Not that any of them look like Simpsons characters, but the only emoji option on iOS for like five years was the yellow-shaded cartoon face. It's still the default skin tone in most emoji sets. https://emojipedia.org/emoji-1.0/ https://emojipedia.org/emoji-1.0/
- cpmsmith 5y ago
  The cartoon faces have always been yellow, but the human ones, e.g. hands or gendered faces, were not until 2015 (on iOS). https://emojipedia.org/apple/iphone-os-2.2/ https://emojipedia.org/apple/iphone-os-2.2/ There was a lot of discourse about it at the time. https://www.fastcompany.com/3016256/are-emojis-racist https://www.fastcompany.com/3016256/are-emojis-racist

ziml77 5y ago

The companies need to represent everyone, individuals want to represent themselves. There is no conflict here.