More inclusive emoji, including one of a pregnant man, may be coming to smartphones soon.
Last Saturday was World Emoji Day, and in honour of the day, popular emoji reference site Emojimedia released new images of some of the emoji finalists on the radar of the Unicode Consortium, a non-profit that oversees emoji standards and is responsible for new releases.
And while the consortium will only formally approve in September which emojis will hit operating systems, apps and devices, Emojipedia often puts them together into a single image for people to visualize.
The approved emoji will roll out across various platforms mostly next year.
Some of the updates expected include the ability to choose from 15 different handshake skin tone combinations, and a pregnant man and pregnant person, recognizing how pregnancy is possible among some transgender men and non-binary people.
These will be in addition to the already available Pregnant Woman emoji (?).
Draft Emoji: Pregnant Person #WorldEmojiDay https://t.co/2kZoDx5ejG pic.twitter.com/8gCVWKJXPZ
— Emojipedia ? (@Emojipedia) July 16, 2021
Other 14.0 emoji candidates include a melting face, saluting face, a face holding back tears, a disco ball and a low battery symbol. However, the list is subject to change prior to final approval.
Although Emojipedia often creates interpretations of how some of the emoji may look, the official designs are decided by and vary by platform or service. That means an emoji can look very different on iOS and Android devices, for example.
