3 ms·

Why shouldn’t emoji be an annually refreshed collection of fun fashionable clip art? That’s exactly how users use emoji - for culturally relevant references. As

• csande17 4y ago
  The reason why this is a bad idea is that it's hard to remove emoji when they go out of fashion. You can't just pull characters out of the set without breaking the backwards compatibility assumptions made by every programming language that supports Unicode identifiers, and you can't change the meaning of characters without a painful, politically controversial collaboration between every large tech company (see the pistol emoji). Even ZWJ sequences are forever: we're still stuck with the "eye in speech bubble" emoji despite the fact that it's a logo for a defunct anti-bullying campaign that doesn't even have a working website anymore.
  • int_19h 4y ago
    Why does it matter, though? The symbols are already drawn, and the code that handles the emoji range is already written. As for "obsolete" emojis, regardless of the original intent, they will be appropriated in no time if some suitable use comes along; the official name in the Unicode chart is merely a historical curiosity (and, indeed, those names are wrong for many "legitimate" characters, but can't be changed for the same back-compat reasons).
  • saagarjha 4y ago
    Right, but Unicode also has ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics in it. Is it actually problematic to include a few more code points?