By Joséphine Li
Image: Emojipedia Sample Image Collection version 13.1.
217 New Emojis have been approved and are expected to come to devices between January to October next year.
Unicode, a non-profit that oversees emoji standards, announced the release of more than 200 emojis throughout next year in a limited “Emoji 13.1” release — in a bit of good news, now we have more ways to convey the pain of this year!
As a result of pushing back Unicode 14.0 due to the pandemic, this release is a relatively minor update from Unicode. The majority of additions are for mixed skin tone options.
Red Hearts
Among the major additions include a red heart shown with a bandage across one side — which could be seen as the opposite of the Broken Heart emoji.
The new heart emojis in Emoji 13.1 also include a heart on fire — which, depending on the interpretation, could be used for representations of lust or desire, or could indicate a sense of burning up the past and moving on.
Gender Neutral Emoji Set
Another major addition is an attempt to switch to gender-inclusive designs — a gender-neutral person with a beard, instead of just allowing a seemingly male option.
Unicode aims at standardizing the choices for humans in the emoji set, which often involves ensuring each emoji has a gender-neutral default option, with most also offering the choice of a man or woman.
In order to render gender-neutral emoji, generally, companies would use medium-length hair. To distinguish between gender-neutral and male & female emoji, some platforms use different face size and eyebrow shape.
Interracial Couples
But the bulk of the update, comprising 200 out of the 217 new emojis — is to permit skin tone options for the “couple with heart” emoji.
In the current version, the emoji skin color option only offers the default “yellow” skin tone, but the update will allow other skin tones to be specified. This would also allow for the depiction of interracial relationships.
New Smileys
Other fun additions include three smiley faces. Two of which are brand new — a face blowing out a cloud of smoke, a face in the clouds. Plus a face with spiral eyes, which resolves a disambiguation.
The updates could hit your phone anywhere from January to October 2021, with the more complete “Emoji 14.0” package set to drop in 2022.
