The Emoji Story
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
The rapid rise of emoji (Japanese for 'picture character') is a global phenomenon without precedent. Their widespread use and ability to convey complex messages have not only cemented emoji's place as an emerging digital language, but prompted difficult questions about the creation of a language and digital communication's fraught ties to identity and inclusion.
In THE EMOJI STORY, directors Martha Shane and Ian Cheney lead viewers on a deep dive into the ever evolving world of picture characters, from their humble beginnings in Japan to mobile keyboards the world over, and shed fresh light on the private consortium that approves new emoji offerings and the individuals fighting to make the language more representative of its billions of users.
'Emojis are everywhere - on texts, tweets, Facebook pages, Instagram, are used equally by artists, politicians, advertisers, and others. What is happening? Does emoji writing constitute a new language? Something is definitely going on. This documentary provides an excellent overview of what is going on, how we got there, and where we are going. It is for both emoji users and non-users.' Marcel Danesi, Professor of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Author, The Semiotics of Emoji: The Rise of Visual Language in the Age of the Internet
'Enlightening...Clever...Everything you always wanted to know about emojis, but were afraid to ask.' Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
'Whimsical...thoughtful.' Peter Keough, The Boston Globe
'You should never have this much fun learning about Unicode...It's a doc, but also an underdog story...Fascinating.' Nathan Mattise, Ars Technica
'A fascinating insight into something that everybody now takes for granted - and gives people some background to what they are cultivating and curating in the name of friendship and connection across the information highway.' John Higgins, Film and TV Now
'Interesting...A fun look at the importance of emojis...Conveys the spirit of happiness that emojis are supposed to have.' Nathaniel Muir, AIPT Comics
'Incredible creation stories...Who gets to be represented?' Arielle Pardes, Wired
'A funny, witty and engaging documentary that explores the multifaceted aspects of emojis, the global digital pictograms that are bedazzling communication and cultural representation. The Emoji Story points towards new pathways to learning and education, and is a must watch in classrooms and community settings.' Sanjay Asthana, Professor at the School of Journalism and Strategic Media, Middle Tennessee State University, Co-author, Palestinian Youth Media and the Pedagogies of Estrangement
'Emoji, now ubiquitous in our digital lives, are changing how we express, share, and communicate with our friends, peers, and in the world. The Emoji Story offers a dynamic and engaging exploration into the origins of emoji, from how it all began to how they are regulated today. Educators, parents, and those interested in how people are using emoji to connect around the world will find this film fascinating in the stories it tells and deeply engaging around how emoji are changing our fundamental norms of communication across communities, cultures, and around the globe.' Paul Mihailidis, Professor of Communication, Emerson College, Author, Media Literacy and the Emerging Citizen: Youth, Engagement and Participation in Digital Culture
'Fun, lighthearted...Inspiring.' Dami Lee, The Verge
'The Emoji Story tells the history of emojis and unpacks their cultural significance on a global scale. This fascinating documentary is a welcome addition to the media and cultural studies curriculum.' Laurie Ouellette, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of Minnesota
'Highlight[s] the importance of representation in how we communicate...Endearing and inspiring.' Marty Swant, Adweek
'The Emoji Story asks important questions about the sociocultural significance of emojis within their linguistic, social, aesthetic, and anthropological contexts by specifically focusing on who should be able to include new emojis, and who decides which and how many emojis are included in the library. The movie also documents different motivations and experiences that lead to the development of new emojis by users of online platforms and includes meaningful expert commentaries on the topic.' Asta Zelenkauskaite, Associate Professor of Communication, Drexel University
'The idea of a feature-length documentary about emojis may sound whimsical, but the more filmmakers Ian Cheney and Martha Shane probe the topic, the more intriguing questions are opened up.' Jake Wilson, The Age
'It all makes for fascinating viewing.' Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Hammer to Nail
'Informative, entertaining...It's all bound to make you think twice before sending your next text - and wonder what imagery is missing that could make that message even more impactful.' Edwin Arnaudin, Asheville Movies
'This is probably one of the most insightful documentaries about the shaping of our modern language I've seen in some time.' Khadjiah Johnson, Black Nerd Problems
'A globe-trotting adventure that is as fun as it is thoughtful in exploring the sensitivities involved in the ongoing creation of a new language right before our eyes.' Stephen Saito, The Moveable Fest
'By looking at the history and evolution of emojis, The Emoji Story challenges the pervasive myth that there is anything neutral or inevitable about technological development. Through a focus on diverse examples, the documentary provides an excellent teaching tool that highlights the interwoven relationships between cultures and digital media, as well as the significant role of visual language in contemporary communication and self-representation.' Dr. Jacqueline Ryan Vickery, Associate Professor of Media Arts, Director of Youth Media Lab, University of North Texas
Citation
Main credits
Cheney, Ian (film director)
Cheney, Ian (film producer)
Cheney, Ian (photographer)
Shane, Martha (film director)
Shane, Martha (film producer)
Lee, Jennifer 8. (film producer)
Deonier, Christian (film producer)
Other credits
Edited by Frederick Shanahan; cinematography by Emily Topper, Ian Cheney, Lucy Martens; original score by Ben Fries & Simon Beins.
Distributor subjects
Anthropology; Communications; Computer Programming; Design; Japan; Language Arts; Linguistics; Media Literacy; Psychology; Social Psychology; Sociology; TechnologyKeywords
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[quiet electronic music]
00:00:50.177 --> 00:00:53.180
[gentle music]
00:02:07.630 --> 00:02:11.425
[upbeat music]
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- Do you know anything
about emojis?
00:02:12.843 --> 00:02:15.137
- Yeah, it's, like, an app
for the telephone, right?
00:02:22.728 --> 00:02:24.939
- Well, they should definitely
make a beard emoji.
00:02:24.939 --> 00:02:26.983
I'd probably use that
one more than anything.
00:02:26.983 --> 00:02:29.402
- My talk was about
how we design emojis,
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and it's not just sort
of the color or the shape,
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but it really is
a lot of considerations
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around culture
and representation.
00:02:39.453 --> 00:02:41.914
- I mentioned that the gun
emoji is culturally loaded,
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and that's very, very true,
and this leads to the question,
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can it be a crime
to use emoji in certain ways?
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- So the one I'm holding
right now is the Chia Smiley.
00:03:03.477 --> 00:03:05.855
- I like the poop one.
It's--
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[laughs]
00:03:12.278 --> 00:03:13.446
- That's great.
Which one is that?
00:03:13.446 --> 00:03:14.822
- That one's the thinking face.
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It's a new one.
Have you seen that one?
00:03:25.625 --> 00:03:29.670
It's hard to pinpoint
why emoji is so popular.
00:03:29.670 --> 00:03:34.175
I think emojis came to--
came to prominence
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at almost the exact time
that the phone call died.
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[low mischievous music]
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[telephone rings]
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It's really hard
to convey humor and--
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and just fun conversations
with friends via text.
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For years, people would put
the colon and the bracket
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as a smiley face
at the end of a sentence
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to just make sure that you know
they're being friendly,
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so there's definitely
a--a sense that emoji
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allows you to be--set the tone
of what you're saying.
00:04:12.505 --> 00:04:15.341
Palm trees,
I put them in all my emails.
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I dot the bottom of my
emails with palm trees
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sometimes just to liven
the mood that--
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I feel like, you know,
no one likes getting emails,
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but you put some palm trees
at the bottom,
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I always get compliments.
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The official names
for a lot of emojis
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don't really correlate
with how people use them.
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Looking at emoji today,
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there's so many new emojis
coming along,
00:05:08.894 --> 00:05:11.480
and yet more and more
we're finding
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that people are searching
for emojis that don't exist.
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The process to propose an emoji
is completely open, actually.
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Anyone can submit
an emoji proposal.
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Sort of an interesting
discussion that might be
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yet to come up of, um,
where do you draw the line?
00:06:00.988 --> 00:06:03.991
[birds chirping]
00:06:08.704 --> 00:06:10.373
- Is this--it looks
so much like Furla.
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Is it Furla?
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- No, it's not.
- It's not Furla--
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- I know--
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- I saw the one, like,
in the airplane.
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I was, like, looking through
the duty-free thing.
00:06:16.462 --> 00:06:17.546
- Yeah?
00:06:17.546 --> 00:06:18.881
- And then I saw one
exactly like it.
00:06:18.881 --> 00:06:20.091
- Furla one?
00:06:20.091 --> 00:06:23.094
- Oh, my God.
Look how badly I taped it.
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Oh, that's so cringe.
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- My mom's best friend
also heard about the emojis.
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- How does, like,
everybody know?
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Wait, did I--
You guys saw the--the newspaper
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where my face is on it,
the first page?
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- Yeah, yeah, the German one,
right?
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- Yeah, yeah.
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- You know how we looked?
We--we saw this by accident.
00:06:37.984 --> 00:06:39.193
- Yeah?
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- I was looking at
the newspapers, like,
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"This is Rayouf!"
[laughter]
00:06:42.613 --> 00:06:44.115
- Well, if you look down, it--
- "Look, it's Rayouf!"
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You know,
15 years old is making
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all this fuss about this.
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- On the front of the
newspaper--
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you have to frame that.
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I started using emojis
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when I was around
11 years old
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when I had my first, like,
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iPhone or smartphone
that I could type on.
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For communication with friends,
it's a really huge part
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to the point
that it's kind of scary.
00:07:02.550 --> 00:07:04.468
No, wait, I'm pretty sure
your favorite was--one was,
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like, one of the innocent ones.
00:07:05.970 --> 00:07:07.805
- The laughing with the tears.
00:07:07.805 --> 00:07:09.348
- Yeah, but it was
our group chat
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or some other group chat,
you remember?
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Every text came out with, like,
the laughing face emoji
00:07:12.977 --> 00:07:14.812
right after the, like--
that's your favorite?
00:07:14.812 --> 00:07:16.439
- This is our group chat.
00:07:16.439 --> 00:07:17.940
- Five months ago,
00:07:17.940 --> 00:07:21.944
I created a group chat
for my friends on WhatsApp.
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Both my friends,
Jemima and Naly,
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they had an emoji
to represent them,
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but I didn't have one.
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So, like, to showcase me--
me, a hijabi,
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I jokingly put the emoji
of a turban
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next to two intertwined arrows
next to a woman,
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and brackets
to convey me, a hijabi.
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- [indistinct]
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- But that's what got me
thinking,
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"Why on earth
is there no hijab emoji?"
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My name is Rayouf Alhumedhi.
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I'm 15 years old.
I am from Saudi Arabia,
00:07:55.436 --> 00:07:58.648
but I currently live
in Berlin, Germany.
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According to a 2015 report--
00:08:00.066 --> 00:08:02.109
- You shouldn't read
on the pr--actual presentation.
00:08:02.109 --> 00:08:04.111
- Papa, I--okay.
This is a statistic.
00:08:04.111 --> 00:08:05.696
- O-okay, so this case, fine.
00:08:05.696 --> 00:08:08.157
- Muslim-majority countries
enjoy some of the world's
00:08:08.157 --> 00:08:10.534
highest rates
of smartphone penetration.
00:08:10.534 --> 00:08:12.620
If there are four emojis
00:08:12.620 --> 00:08:15.623
to represent the four
different stages of a mailbox,
00:08:15.623 --> 00:08:18.125
why on Earth isn't there
one to represent
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the half a billion Muslims
that wear the headscarf?
00:08:21.545 --> 00:08:23.965
- Half a billion?
That's a huge number.
00:08:23.965 --> 00:08:25.633
- Mm-hmm, it is.
- That's not represented.
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- Yeah.
Yes, it is.
00:08:27.009 --> 00:08:28.761
- Okay, that's a--
it's a really smart idea.
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You did the statistics
in your study?
00:08:30.721 --> 00:08:32.098
- Yeah.
- In your proposal?
00:08:32.098 --> 00:08:34.350
- Yeah, most of them, yeah.
- That's very convincing.
00:08:34.350 --> 00:08:37.603
- Emojis are
a very small example,
00:08:37.603 --> 00:08:40.856
but it's critical to note the
importance of representation,
00:08:40.856 --> 00:08:43.109
and whenever you have the
chance to strive for diversity,
00:08:43.109 --> 00:08:45.486
you should definitely take it,
because at the end of the day,
00:08:45.486 --> 00:08:48.030
it will only promote
tolerance and acceptance
00:08:48.030 --> 00:08:50.241
and cultural awareness.
00:08:50.241 --> 00:08:52.243
- That's good.
- Thank you!
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[both cheering]
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That was so long.
00:08:55.663 --> 00:08:57.123
- Good job.
[indistinct]
00:08:57.123 --> 00:08:59.500
- How do people do
presentations, like, every day?
00:08:59.500 --> 00:09:00.710
It's so tiring.
00:09:00.710 --> 00:09:02.044
- Good, good.
Good presentation.
00:09:02.044 --> 00:09:03.045
I think they will like it.
00:09:03.045 --> 00:09:04.088
- It's really good.
- Yeah.
00:09:04.088 --> 00:09:07.091
[light music]
00:09:10.678 --> 00:09:13.931
- So first I, uh, wrote to
Apple's customer service,
00:09:13.931 --> 00:09:16.934
requesting the hijab emoji.
00:09:16.934 --> 00:09:18.352
Didn't get a reply
00:09:18.352 --> 00:09:21.355
because Apple doesn't
deal with these things.
00:09:21.355 --> 00:09:25.026
But one day
I see the Unicode Consortium,
00:09:25.026 --> 00:09:29.280
the organization that
deals with all the emojis.
00:09:29.280 --> 00:09:31.115
That's exactly
what I wanted to hear.
00:09:31.115 --> 00:09:33.034
Like, there was
an actual organization
00:09:33.034 --> 00:09:34.076
that I could contact.
00:09:37.496 --> 00:09:40.124
I created
a five-page proposal,
00:09:40.124 --> 00:09:42.710
and it will be decided
whether it will be approved
00:09:42.710 --> 00:09:45.880
or not this November 7th.
00:09:45.880 --> 00:09:47.214
I will be presenting
00:09:47.214 --> 00:09:50.009
to the Unicode Technical
Committee in San Francisco.
00:09:57.683 --> 00:10:00.686
[birds chirping]
00:10:10.112 --> 00:10:13.449
- I have some glorified titles
with Unicode.
00:10:13.449 --> 00:10:14.951
I had missed one meeting,
00:10:14.951 --> 00:10:17.578
and that one meeting
they decided to elect me
00:10:17.578 --> 00:10:21.499
to be vice chair of the Unicode
Technical Committee, so.
00:10:21.499 --> 00:10:24.251
- My name is Mark Davis,
and I'm the president
00:10:24.251 --> 00:10:26.963
and cofounder
of the Unicode Consortium.
00:10:26.963 --> 00:10:29.548
- I chair the Unicode
Technical Committee,
00:10:29.548 --> 00:10:31.968
and I've done that
for 20 years.
00:10:31.968 --> 00:10:33.552
It says, "UTC Chair."
00:10:33.552 --> 00:10:36.430
This is my gavel,
and I take it, and I--
00:10:36.430 --> 00:10:37.890
[gavel raps]
00:10:37.890 --> 00:10:40.267
- The Consortium
is composed of people
00:10:40.267 --> 00:10:43.437
from all the world's
biggest companies.
00:10:43.437 --> 00:10:46.065
Our primary goal
is representing
00:10:46.065 --> 00:10:47.984
all the world's languages
so that they work on
00:10:47.984 --> 00:10:49.652
computers and smart devices.
00:10:50.987 --> 00:10:53.447
Before Unicode,
the world we lived in--
00:10:53.447 --> 00:10:55.616
it was a mess.
00:10:55.616 --> 00:10:59.078
- You had a set of codes
that you would use for German.
00:10:59.078 --> 00:11:01.580
You had a set of codes
you'd use for Japanese.
00:11:01.580 --> 00:11:05.126
You had a set of codes
you'd use for Chinese.
00:11:05.126 --> 00:11:07.962
You couldn't
really match them.
00:11:07.962 --> 00:11:12.049
- Ideally,
if I were to write you,
00:11:12.049 --> 00:11:13.592
you wouldn't get
a question mark.
00:11:13.592 --> 00:11:15.219
You wouldn't get a square box.
00:11:15.219 --> 00:11:17.305
You wouldn't get
something unreadable.
00:11:17.305 --> 00:11:19.390
That's what Unicode
is all about,
00:11:19.390 --> 00:11:20.933
making the languages
of the world
00:11:20.933 --> 00:11:23.686
work on all those
smart devices.
00:11:23.686 --> 00:11:27.023
And often, as part of writing
systems, there are symbols.
00:11:27.023 --> 00:11:30.693
Emoji are new
and rather different symbols.
00:11:30.693 --> 00:11:32.403
[inquisitive music]
00:11:32.403 --> 00:11:34.822
- Emojis started out in Japan.
00:11:36.532 --> 00:11:39.535
Cell phone carriers at that
time were having problems
00:11:39.535 --> 00:11:43.414
because each implementation
of emoji were different.
00:11:43.414 --> 00:11:46.334
So when one person
would maybe send a heart
00:11:46.334 --> 00:11:47.793
to their girlfriend,
00:11:47.793 --> 00:11:50.296
the girlfriend would see
some weird symbol.
00:11:52.048 --> 00:11:55.009
And we decided,
"Okay, uh, we will incorporate
00:11:55.009 --> 00:11:58.429
these pictographic
symbols into Unicode."
00:11:58.429 --> 00:12:01.098
- So now if I text you
a lizard,
00:12:01.098 --> 00:12:03.601
what you see on your screen
hopefully will be a lizard,
00:12:03.601 --> 00:12:05.561
something you understand
to be a lizard,
00:12:05.561 --> 00:12:08.397
uh, and look fairly much
like a lizard.
00:12:12.860 --> 00:12:16.405
- With emoji, unlike
established languages,
00:12:16.405 --> 00:12:21.243
we're evaluating something
that's really being invented.
00:12:21.243 --> 00:12:23.746
We get hundreds of proposals,
00:12:23.746 --> 00:12:27.625
but we only encode
60 emoji a year.
00:12:43.516 --> 00:12:46.519
[birds chirping]
00:12:58.447 --> 00:12:59.448
- Are we shooting?
00:13:00.825 --> 00:13:03.244
[cheerful music]
00:13:03.244 --> 00:13:06.539
- [speaking Spanish]
[laughs]
00:13:09.750 --> 00:13:11.252
[speaking Spanish]
00:13:11.252 --> 00:13:13.504
- [laughs]
00:13:17.633 --> 00:13:19.468
[laughter]
00:13:42.742 --> 00:13:45.453
[both speaking Spanish]
00:14:07.683 --> 00:14:09.393
[laughter]
00:14:23.866 --> 00:14:26.869
[mouse clicking]
00:16:02.548 --> 00:16:04.300
- Mm-hmm.
00:16:47.635 --> 00:16:50.638
[light music]
00:17:22.503 --> 00:17:23.963
- My name is Tyler Schnoebelen,
00:17:23.963 --> 00:17:26.632
and I'm accidentally
a world emoji expert.
00:17:26.632 --> 00:17:29.593
I-I got my start by--
my dissertation
00:17:29.593 --> 00:17:31.554
was from Stanford,
uh, in linguistics.
00:17:34.265 --> 00:17:36.142
You know, there are
two different camps here.
00:17:36.142 --> 00:17:38.436
There's the "oonga boonga" camp
that's like,
00:17:38.436 --> 00:17:39.854
"Emoji are destroying
our language.
00:17:39.854 --> 00:17:41.355
"We won't have
any more language left.
00:17:41.355 --> 00:17:43.524
"Uh, that's--
this is all we'll have,
00:17:43.524 --> 00:17:46.152
and it's going to--
civilization's going to end."
00:17:46.152 --> 00:17:47.403
The other is,
00:17:47.403 --> 00:17:50.031
"Ooh, here's this--
these sort of symbols,
00:17:50.031 --> 00:17:51.615
"and the whole world
can use them,
00:17:51.615 --> 00:17:53.075
"and soon we will
have world peace
00:17:53.075 --> 00:17:54.577
and live on a higher plane."
00:17:54.577 --> 00:17:57.872
So sa--uh, sort of,
I-I like that vision,
00:17:57.872 --> 00:17:59.915
but that's--neither of these
are going to happen.
00:17:59.915 --> 00:18:01.917
[melancholy electronic music]
00:18:01.917 --> 00:18:04.629
The one thing that
is true about emoji
00:18:04.629 --> 00:18:07.173
is that it's--
it's a way of sort of being
00:18:07.173 --> 00:18:09.884
engaged emotionally
in a positive way.
00:18:09.884 --> 00:18:12.094
The most popular ones by far
00:18:12.094 --> 00:18:14.263
are sort of smiley faces
and hearts, right?
00:18:14.263 --> 00:18:16.766
So that really is telling you
something about
00:18:16.766 --> 00:18:18.100
how people are
using these, right?
00:18:18.100 --> 00:18:20.561
They're using them
with intimate relationships,
00:18:20.561 --> 00:18:25.024
uh, and they're using them
to do kind of happiness work.
00:18:41.207 --> 00:18:43.042
People give pet names, right?
00:18:43.042 --> 00:18:44.877
So I know, uh,
people who, you know,
00:18:44.877 --> 00:18:47.129
call each other sparkle tiger
and honey bear, right?
00:18:47.129 --> 00:18:49.090
This is--these are how
they refer to each other,
00:18:49.090 --> 00:18:51.592
and they have little emoji
to help it.
00:18:51.592 --> 00:18:54.553
There's clearly great
expressive power for emoji,
00:18:54.553 --> 00:18:55.972
but a world language?
00:18:55.972 --> 00:18:59.809
Well, there are hundreds
and hundreds of emoji,
00:18:59.809 --> 00:19:02.269
but you and I
probably have between
00:19:02.269 --> 00:19:07.191
50,000 and 100,000 words
in our vocabulary.
00:19:07.191 --> 00:19:09.026
And what kind of things does--
00:19:09.026 --> 00:19:10.903
does the world
need to talk about, right?
00:19:10.903 --> 00:19:12.571
If it's day-to-day stuff like,
00:19:12.571 --> 00:19:15.533
"Oh, could you get me a sushi
at the--the market?
00:19:15.533 --> 00:19:17.201
And by the way,
bring it in an ambulance,"
00:19:17.201 --> 00:19:19.036
Like, okay, fine.
00:19:19.036 --> 00:19:20.579
But the things that the world
needs to talk about,
00:19:20.579 --> 00:19:22.748
like free trade agreements,
00:19:22.748 --> 00:19:27.003
uh, you know,
Ebola and other epidemics--
00:19:27.003 --> 00:19:28.337
that's not gonna--
00:19:28.337 --> 00:19:30.464
emoji are not really
gonna help solve that.
00:19:30.464 --> 00:19:33.467
[playful music]
00:19:40.266 --> 00:19:43.436
- So this is my wall of--
00:19:43.436 --> 00:19:46.814
for Korean masks
and Indonesian masks.
00:19:46.814 --> 00:19:49.775
The Indonesian masks
I bought in the Netherlands.
00:19:49.775 --> 00:19:52.194
The Korean masks,
some of them I bought in Korea,
00:19:52.194 --> 00:19:55.531
and a couple of them
were given to me as gifts.
00:19:55.531 --> 00:20:00.244
The, uh, dark one with
the cloth behind represents--
00:20:00.244 --> 00:20:03.623
in, uh, Korean folk theater,
it represents the teacher.
00:20:03.623 --> 00:20:07.418
I love it because it's very
mean and nasty looking.
00:20:07.418 --> 00:20:10.921
When I started studying emoji,
I had been interviewed
00:20:10.921 --> 00:20:13.049
already several times
by journalists
00:20:13.049 --> 00:20:16.677
about this emergent
emoji phenomenon,
00:20:16.677 --> 00:20:18.512
and was it a new language?
00:20:18.512 --> 00:20:19.805
Was this, like, uh,
00:20:19.805 --> 00:20:22.600
maybe a pidgin language
or a creole language?
00:20:22.600 --> 00:20:27.146
And I said no at that time.
I s--uh, being a good linguist,
00:20:27.146 --> 00:20:29.815
I said, "Well, in order
to have a language,
00:20:29.815 --> 00:20:31.067
you have to have
certain things."
00:20:32.485 --> 00:20:35.821
You have to have
grammatical categories,
00:20:35.821 --> 00:20:39.533
and the current emoji
lack in certain categories.
00:20:39.533 --> 00:20:42.203
[light electronic music]
00:20:42.203 --> 00:20:45.373
In emoji, you can't
talk about the past
00:20:45.373 --> 00:20:46.916
or the future very well.
00:20:46.916 --> 00:20:49.335
You can't, um, uh--
00:20:49.335 --> 00:20:51.796
have a flashback
if you're telling a story.
00:20:51.796 --> 00:20:56.008
You have to have things that
express abstract concepts,
00:20:56.008 --> 00:20:58.302
and most emoji
are very concrete.
00:21:00.179 --> 00:21:02.223
But what converted me
was the work
00:21:02.223 --> 00:21:04.892
that I've been doing
looking at emoji sequences,
00:21:04.892 --> 00:21:08.479
sequences of two or more emoji,
uh, in Chinese
00:21:08.479 --> 00:21:11.273
on a platform
called Sina Weibo,
00:21:11.273 --> 00:21:14.986
which is kind of like
the Chinese Twitter.
00:21:14.986 --> 00:21:18.322
And lo and behold, we started
seeing patterns emerging.
00:21:18.322 --> 00:21:20.282
What the people are doing
00:21:20.282 --> 00:21:22.535
is they're adapting
the existing emoji
00:21:22.535 --> 00:21:23.828
and using them
in novel ways.
00:21:25.121 --> 00:21:29.583
For example, they're using
a noun as a verb.
00:21:29.583 --> 00:21:31.794
So they'll use "microphone"
00:21:31.794 --> 00:21:34.380
to refer
to the activity of singing.
00:21:45.349 --> 00:21:47.727
And I've seen people do some
pretty interesting things
00:21:47.727 --> 00:21:50.813
to create pronouns
to refer to "I" and "you."
00:21:50.813 --> 00:21:53.274
One person was using
an up arrow for "I"
00:21:53.274 --> 00:21:55.276
and a down arrow for "you."
00:22:04.869 --> 00:22:09.373
So we're seeing evidence
that users are moving emoji
00:22:09.373 --> 00:22:11.125
towards being
more language-like.
00:22:12.668 --> 00:22:17.381
I think humans have an innate
urge to create language.
00:22:17.381 --> 00:22:20.343
[mellow electronic music]
00:22:20.343 --> 00:22:22.428
- We get proposals
for just about
00:22:22.428 --> 00:22:24.722
every emoji under the sun.
00:22:24.722 --> 00:22:28.643
Anybody can actually
make a proposal for emoji.
00:22:28.643 --> 00:22:31.395
Uh, we--we'd like--
and--and, you know--
00:22:31.395 --> 00:22:35.775
so Unicode would like that
proposal to be well-formed.
00:22:35.775 --> 00:22:38.527
We actually have a document
on our website that says,
00:22:38.527 --> 00:22:40.488
"Here's how to make
an emoji proposal."
00:23:05.972 --> 00:23:08.808
- One of the reasons we are
fairly conservative
00:23:08.808 --> 00:23:12.311
is that every emoji
that we put in Unicode
00:23:12.311 --> 00:23:16.107
is going to be in Unicode
after you and I are both dust.
00:23:16.899 --> 00:23:19.026
- We have to be very careful
with the process
00:23:19.026 --> 00:23:22.655
that what we ultimately encode
is going to be something
00:23:22.655 --> 00:23:27.243
that has permanence and will
stand the test of time.
00:23:41.716 --> 00:23:44.593
[seagulls crying]
00:23:52.059 --> 00:23:54.770
[telephone ringing]
00:24:00.484 --> 00:24:02.528
- Good morning.
Um, this is just
00:24:02.528 --> 00:24:05.364
a midway check-in
for our period emoji campaign,
00:24:05.364 --> 00:24:08.451
and this meeting is just for us
to see how things are going,
00:24:08.451 --> 00:24:10.703
um, and just give a bit
of an update on where everyone
00:24:10.703 --> 00:24:12.997
is on the different areas
they've worked on.
00:24:12.997 --> 00:24:14.498
- Well, we had quite
a lot of shares
00:24:14.498 --> 00:24:16.667
and also quite a few likes.
00:24:16.667 --> 00:24:20.046
The comments have been mainly
around, "Why do we need this?"
00:24:20.046 --> 00:24:21.464
- Mm-hmm.
00:24:21.464 --> 00:24:22.840
- So, like, people basically
saying, like, you know,
00:24:22.840 --> 00:24:25.217
"We don't think
this is, uh, important."
00:24:25.217 --> 00:24:27.303
So I want to start
retargeting people
00:24:27.303 --> 00:24:29.263
with the Menstrual Manifesto.
00:24:29.263 --> 00:24:30.473
- Yay.
00:24:30.473 --> 00:24:31.474
- Especially 'cause
I think that will...
00:24:31.474 --> 00:24:32.892
- Such a good fit.
00:24:32.892 --> 00:24:34.310
- Describe it a bit better,
like, kind of put a bit
00:24:34.310 --> 00:24:35.728
of context into, like,
why we're doing it, you know?
00:24:35.728 --> 00:24:37.104
- Yeah, great.
Um, and then the submission,
00:24:37.104 --> 00:24:38.564
I guess, is the next step.
00:24:38.564 --> 00:24:40.733
So when we finish up
on the 26th,
00:24:40.733 --> 00:24:42.526
we'll be working on
the submission for Unicode.
00:24:42.526 --> 00:24:43.527
- Yes.
00:24:45.821 --> 00:24:49.367
- We're a children's charity
with a girls' rights focus.
00:24:49.367 --> 00:24:50.743
[faint conversations]
00:24:50.743 --> 00:24:53.829
I remember sitting around
this table for an afternoon
00:24:53.829 --> 00:24:56.540
of sort of brainstorming
and jokingly saying,
00:24:56.540 --> 00:24:58.960
"What about a menstrual
hygiene emoji?"
00:24:58.960 --> 00:25:02.838
thinking that no one
would really react.
00:25:02.838 --> 00:25:04.882
But then we got talking
to some colleagues
00:25:04.882 --> 00:25:07.551
and started sketching
blood drops
00:25:07.551 --> 00:25:10.388
and reproductive systems.
00:25:10.388 --> 00:25:12.640
My favorite was the uterus.
00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:14.642
We were looking
at it thinking,
00:25:14.642 --> 00:25:15.977
"Looks a bit like an alien."
00:25:15.977 --> 00:25:17.478
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Or a goat.
00:25:17.478 --> 00:25:18.688
- Yeah, a goat, yeah.
00:25:18.688 --> 00:25:19.981
- A really common one
was people saying,
00:25:19.981 --> 00:25:21.357
"Why are you promoting
this goat,
00:25:21.357 --> 00:25:24.568
and how has it got anything
to do with menstruation?"
00:25:26.696 --> 00:25:29.240
- So those are
the emoji designs.
00:25:29.240 --> 00:25:31.492
You kinda need to keep it
quite simple.
00:25:31.492 --> 00:25:33.828
The pants were my favorite.
00:25:33.828 --> 00:25:37.415
Um, when we went to the vote,
the ones that was voted
00:25:37.415 --> 00:25:40.459
the most was
the, um, the pants,
00:25:40.459 --> 00:25:43.087
which I was pleased with.
00:25:55.891 --> 00:25:57.476
- It was incredible.
- Like, right? Yeah.
00:25:57.476 --> 00:25:59.395
- Yeah, it's the biggest spike
we've ever seen in web traffic.
00:25:59.395 --> 00:26:02.648
It's still yet to be beaten
in any way.
00:26:02.648 --> 00:26:04.275
It was, uh--
- Amazing.
00:26:09.739 --> 00:26:13.034
- When we find out either way,
we'll do press around it,
00:26:13.034 --> 00:26:15.286
and the BBC is interested.
00:26:21.500 --> 00:26:23.169
- Yeah, right, yeah.
- Mm.
00:26:23.169 --> 00:26:25.171
- I think, like, it is just,
like, a bunch of like--
00:26:25.171 --> 00:26:27.381
it's old--like,
old white guys, basically,
00:26:27.381 --> 00:26:29.884
who've been knocking about,
like, so they can volley for,
00:26:29.884 --> 00:26:32.845
like, quite a long time,
banging their gavel.
00:26:38.893 --> 00:26:40.728
[melancholy music]
00:26:40.728 --> 00:26:42.521
- Sorry, do--
do you have a moment,
00:26:42.521 --> 00:26:44.440
or are you in a rush?
You're in a rush.
00:26:44.440 --> 00:26:46.609
- I'm sorry.
- Oh, no worries then.
00:26:48.527 --> 00:26:50.821
I work for
Plan International U.K,
00:26:50.821 --> 00:26:53.115
which is a girls' rights,
uh, organization.
00:26:53.115 --> 00:26:54.575
- Okay, uh-huh.
00:26:54.575 --> 00:26:56.953
- Um, and we are campaigning
for a period emoji.
00:26:56.953 --> 00:26:58.287
- Okay.
00:26:58.287 --> 00:26:59.664
- Um, do you agree that
we need a period emoji?
00:26:59.664 --> 00:27:01.332
- Why not?
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:27:01.332 --> 00:27:04.210
- Um, we've got a pair of pants
with blood drops on them.
00:27:04.210 --> 00:27:05.336
- Okay.
00:27:05.336 --> 00:27:06.420
- So this was
actually submitted.
00:27:06.420 --> 00:27:08.089
We have lots
of different emojis
00:27:08.089 --> 00:27:09.465
for lots of different things,
like bagels--
00:27:09.465 --> 00:27:11.300
- Poop. [laughs]
- Poop.
00:27:11.300 --> 00:27:13.052
I know,
we've got a couple of them.
00:27:13.052 --> 00:27:14.804
- Quite frankly, yes, yeah.
- Exactly.
00:27:14.804 --> 00:27:16.347
- So what does that mean if
we don't have a period emoji?
00:27:16.347 --> 00:27:17.473
- Yeah, yeah.
00:27:17.473 --> 00:27:19.266
- Yeah, I think
it's a great idea.
00:27:19.266 --> 00:27:20.601
I think it's a great idea.
- Oh.
00:27:20.601 --> 00:27:22.269
- Especially for younger--
00:27:22.269 --> 00:27:24.981
younger girls as well who are
just starting their period.
00:27:27.358 --> 00:27:29.151
- It's a lighthearted thing,
but it is something
00:27:29.151 --> 00:27:30.945
that sort of strategically
really does fit
00:27:30.945 --> 00:27:34.115
into what we want to do around
changing the conversation
00:27:34.115 --> 00:27:37.660
about periods and--
and normalizing periods.
00:27:37.660 --> 00:27:39.412
In cultures around the world,
00:27:39.412 --> 00:27:41.539
young girls don't feel
comfortable to say
00:27:41.539 --> 00:27:44.125
that they need
menstrual hygiene products
00:27:44.125 --> 00:27:45.835
and are using unsafe methods,
00:27:45.835 --> 00:27:49.588
and it starts getting
in the way of their education.
00:27:49.588 --> 00:27:51.841
And I think getting
a global emoji
00:27:51.841 --> 00:27:53.759
could go some way to saying,
00:27:53.759 --> 00:27:55.344
"It's okay,
I can talk about this.
00:27:55.344 --> 00:27:57.305
"This isn't the most
embarrassing thing
00:27:57.305 --> 00:27:58.806
in the world."
00:27:58.806 --> 00:28:01.809
[gentle music]
00:28:08.274 --> 00:28:12.236
- So Emojination is an emoji
advocacy group whose motto is,
00:28:12.236 --> 00:28:13.904
"Emoji by the people
for the people,"
00:28:13.904 --> 00:28:18.326
and we basically fight for more
inclusive and diverse emoji.
00:28:18.326 --> 00:28:20.161
[cheerful music]
00:28:20.161 --> 00:28:22.913
Until 2016, the only things
that you could be as a girl
00:28:22.913 --> 00:28:26.500
were dancer, princess, bride,
or Playboy Bunny.
00:28:30.630 --> 00:28:32.256
I grew up reading
and writing Chinese,
00:28:32.256 --> 00:28:33.716
and one of
the interesting things
00:28:33.716 --> 00:28:35.134
is, like--
I like to say, like,
00:28:35.134 --> 00:28:37.595
"Chinese characters
are the original, like, emoji."
00:28:37.595 --> 00:28:41.515
And one of the characters
that's been really interesting
00:28:41.515 --> 00:28:44.226
to see how it's used
is the word for "woman,"
00:28:44.226 --> 00:28:46.145
which is "nu."
00:28:46.145 --> 00:28:50.358
And the way that it's combined
kinda shows you the mentality
00:28:50.358 --> 00:28:52.652
of, like, ancient China
at the time.
00:28:53.653 --> 00:28:59.075
For example, woman underneath
a roof means the word "peace."
00:28:59.075 --> 00:29:01.160
So things are "at peace"
when the woman is at--
00:29:01.160 --> 00:29:03.704
you know, under a roof.
00:29:03.704 --> 00:29:05.206
A woman with a child,
00:29:05.206 --> 00:29:09.669
or a woman specifically
with a boy child, means "good,"
00:29:09.669 --> 00:29:13.172
but, like, three women
together means "wicked."
00:29:14.507 --> 00:29:17.927
So this idea is,
from the very beginning,
00:29:17.927 --> 00:29:21.472
hardwired into how kids learn
their Chinese characters.
00:29:24.308 --> 00:29:28.020
To some extent, if kids
communicate through emoji,
00:29:28.020 --> 00:29:31.607
what they're able to say
comes from the emoji keyboard,
00:29:31.607 --> 00:29:33.150
and what is on
the emoji keyboard
00:29:33.150 --> 00:29:35.945
therefore kinda defines
their world.
00:29:35.945 --> 00:29:38.531
But one of the--
the tricky issues is, like,
00:29:38.531 --> 00:29:43.536
how do you get an entire world
into a unified set of emoji?
00:29:47.123 --> 00:29:49.166
- Obviously,
being a universal system,
00:29:49.166 --> 00:29:52.545
the different gestures
and--and signs
00:29:52.545 --> 00:29:54.422
will mean different things
to different people.
00:29:56.007 --> 00:29:58.426
The thumbs up
in some countries
00:29:58.426 --> 00:29:59.760
is an offensive gesture.
00:29:59.760 --> 00:30:01.929
[mischievous music]
00:30:01.929 --> 00:30:03.514
The peace sign
is universally known.
00:30:03.514 --> 00:30:06.851
There's the reverse of that,
which is offensive in the U.K.
00:30:06.851 --> 00:30:08.436
It's a--
It's like the middle finger.
00:30:09.770 --> 00:30:12.523
The okay sign also is
offensive in some countries
00:30:12.523 --> 00:30:14.608
but not in others,
00:30:14.608 --> 00:30:17.445
so if we only had emojis
to communicate in,
00:30:17.445 --> 00:30:19.905
I could imagine
diplomatic issues
00:30:19.905 --> 00:30:23.034
being very problematic then.
00:30:23.034 --> 00:30:25.161
Emojis can be interpreted
in all kinds of different ways.
00:30:25.161 --> 00:30:27.204
I think it would be very hard
to get anything done.
00:30:32.960 --> 00:30:35.504
- It's funny that Tinder
appeared, really,
00:30:35.504 --> 00:30:37.548
at the same time
as emoji took off,
00:30:37.548 --> 00:30:41.677
and I think
if emoji didn't exist,
00:30:41.677 --> 00:30:44.680
uh, we might have had
to create it to make Tinder
00:30:44.680 --> 00:30:46.599
the sort of universe it is.
00:30:46.599 --> 00:30:50.269
[light music]
00:30:50.269 --> 00:30:51.729
I love some of
the creative ways
00:30:51.729 --> 00:30:54.231
that people have used emoji.
00:30:54.231 --> 00:30:57.318
So one of my favorites
is someone created a road
00:30:57.318 --> 00:30:59.153
with a car being chased
by a whole bunch
00:30:59.153 --> 00:31:01.739
of police car in palm trees,
and someone said,
00:31:01.739 --> 00:31:03.824
"This could be us
running away from it all."
00:31:05.409 --> 00:31:06.661
When you're going out
00:31:06.661 --> 00:31:08.454
and meeting someone
completely new,
00:31:08.454 --> 00:31:11.082
you know, it's a very
emotionally fraught thing.
00:31:11.082 --> 00:31:13.334
You're, like,
putting yourself out there.
00:31:13.334 --> 00:31:15.002
And the difficult part of it
00:31:15.002 --> 00:31:17.838
is emoji are easy
to misunderstand.
00:31:21.467 --> 00:31:24.679
- How many of you have
ever had an awkward moment?
00:31:26.514 --> 00:31:30.309
You are executives on the rise.
00:31:30.309 --> 00:31:32.186
I'm a national
etiquette expert,
00:31:32.186 --> 00:31:34.355
and one of the things
that I'm asked about often
00:31:34.355 --> 00:31:36.732
is emojis.
"When can I use emojis,
00:31:36.732 --> 00:31:38.275
and when should
I not use emojis?"
00:31:38.275 --> 00:31:40.611
And emojis are a great tool,
00:31:40.611 --> 00:31:42.697
but they have to be used
at the right time.
00:31:42.697 --> 00:31:44.907
- What emojis are not
okay to use?
00:31:44.907 --> 00:31:46.951
- "What emojis
are not okay to use?"
00:31:46.951 --> 00:31:48.995
The eggplant would be one.
00:31:48.995 --> 00:31:50.663
[laughter]
00:31:50.663 --> 00:31:53.416
The peach would be another one.
00:31:53.416 --> 00:31:55.751
Anything that would
send the wrong--
00:31:55.751 --> 00:31:58.004
potential wrong message.
00:31:58.004 --> 00:32:01.090
- Obviously not those,
but example, a winky face.
00:32:01.090 --> 00:32:04.051
- So a winky face would not be
appropriate for business.
00:32:04.051 --> 00:32:05.720
- But if the boss
sends you one?
00:32:05.720 --> 00:32:08.097
- If the boss sends you one,
still not appropriate.
00:32:08.097 --> 00:32:10.891
More inappropriate,
even worse.
00:32:10.891 --> 00:32:13.644
[laughs]
Okay.
00:32:13.644 --> 00:32:17.023
Often we send an emoji,
and it's ambiguous.
00:32:17.023 --> 00:32:19.859
And we're not--we're not even
certain what it means.
00:32:19.859 --> 00:32:21.277
We think we know.
00:32:21.277 --> 00:32:25.823
You bring the bread
to your mouth with one bite.
00:32:25.823 --> 00:32:28.409
It's much like learning
a new language.
00:32:28.409 --> 00:32:30.286
It's up to us
to do our research.
00:32:30.286 --> 00:32:32.079
If we're gonna use them,
we need to--
00:32:32.079 --> 00:32:34.790
we need to look into it
and see what they do mean.
00:32:34.790 --> 00:32:38.044
[light music]
00:32:44.050 --> 00:32:47.345
- I actually have went through
and counted every single emoji
00:32:47.345 --> 00:32:49.221
and used them before,
00:32:49.221 --> 00:32:52.933
so I think I've mastered
all of the emojis.
00:32:52.933 --> 00:32:57.813
[singing] Send me an emoji,
Send me an emoji
00:32:57.813 --> 00:33:01.025
I'm Brooklyn Queen
from Detroit, 13 years old.
00:33:01.025 --> 00:33:02.985
I was like, "We need
to make a song about emojis
00:33:02.985 --> 00:33:07.365
because I use emojis
every single day."
00:33:07.365 --> 00:33:08.991
Look how long my hair was.
00:33:08.991 --> 00:33:11.744
My hair's not
that long anymore.
00:33:11.744 --> 00:33:13.204
[singing]
When you want to LOL
00:33:13.204 --> 00:33:14.872
Just send me
the laughing face
00:33:14.872 --> 00:33:16.415
both: [singing]
S-s-send me an emoji
00:33:16.415 --> 00:33:18.459
And it goes straight
to my pocket
00:33:18.459 --> 00:33:19.794
When I'm going live
00:33:19.794 --> 00:33:21.671
They post emojis
while they watching
00:33:21.671 --> 00:33:23.130
All they post
is fire flames
00:33:23.130 --> 00:33:25.007
They think that
I'm the hottest
00:33:25.007 --> 00:33:27.510
- I use waves
and fire flames a lot
00:33:27.510 --> 00:33:32.181
because waves is basically,
like, you're a trend,
00:33:32.181 --> 00:33:34.517
and people, like,
want to ride your wave.
00:33:34.517 --> 00:33:38.104
- Heart eyes, kissy face,
waves with the fire flame
00:33:38.104 --> 00:33:39.939
And fire flames mean,
like, you're lit.
00:33:39.939 --> 00:33:41.649
Like, you're hype.
00:33:41.649 --> 00:33:44.235
[singing] Looking way too cool,
smiley face with the shades
00:33:44.235 --> 00:33:45.945
If you're trying
to show some love
00:33:45.945 --> 00:33:47.738
Drop a heart on my page...
00:33:47.738 --> 00:33:49.865
I knew it was gonna be big,
but I didn't know
00:33:49.865 --> 00:33:54.161
it was gonna get, like,
100 million views on the song.
00:33:54.161 --> 00:33:56.330
- Oh, I got--
I got something for you.
00:33:57.623 --> 00:34:00.668
I gotta find
what I'm trying to say.
00:34:00.668 --> 00:34:04.588
- I'm scared.
- Mm-hmm, you should be.
00:34:04.588 --> 00:34:07.466
- Me and my mom
use emojis differently.
00:34:07.466 --> 00:34:08.968
- If I comment
under her picture
00:34:08.968 --> 00:34:10.970
with too many emojis,
she'll text me, like,
00:34:10.970 --> 00:34:12.513
"You're doing too much."
00:34:12.513 --> 00:34:14.890
Is it a rule for, like,
people under 18?
00:34:14.890 --> 00:34:17.601
Who is the emoji rule maker?
00:34:17.601 --> 00:34:20.604
- No one wrote the rules.
It's just, like...
00:34:22.398 --> 00:34:25.818
- Like, for instance,
I got yelled at for this.
00:34:25.818 --> 00:34:29.322
One of her supporters
posted a--a tongue,
00:34:29.322 --> 00:34:32.950
a eggplant,
and a smi--like, a heart.
00:34:32.950 --> 00:34:34.744
And I went underneath it
and tagged him
00:34:34.744 --> 00:34:37.580
and put the--the eggplant
and the heart back,
00:34:37.580 --> 00:34:40.416
and she went crazy on me.
00:34:40.416 --> 00:34:41.959
And I don't know,
I'm like,
00:34:41.959 --> 00:34:44.128
"What is wrong?
I'm just commenting back."
00:34:44.128 --> 00:34:47.381
She's like, "No!
Delete that whole comment."
00:34:47.381 --> 00:34:50.134
[both laugh]
00:34:50.134 --> 00:34:53.137
[low playful music]
00:35:01.145 --> 00:35:04.023
- [indistinct]
- [speaking foreign language]
00:35:04.023 --> 00:35:08.277
This is soup, um, lentil soup
with [indistinct].
00:35:08.277 --> 00:35:10.571
[speaking foreign language]
00:35:10.571 --> 00:35:13.491
- Are you excited?
- I am, uh, very excited,
00:35:13.491 --> 00:35:17.244
but, um, plus at same times,
I'm a little bit nervous
00:35:17.244 --> 00:35:20.164
because this first time
for you to leave me.
00:35:20.164 --> 00:35:21.832
- [laughs]
No.
00:35:21.832 --> 00:35:25.252
- The emoji, it is the
fantastic thing for short time.
00:35:25.252 --> 00:35:28.339
I like--I don't like
to make text long.
00:35:28.339 --> 00:35:29.882
But when they have a emoji--
00:35:29.882 --> 00:35:31.384
- [indistinct]
00:35:31.384 --> 00:35:35.680
- Like yesterday, my mother,
she can't, um, write.
00:35:35.680 --> 00:35:37.014
- Mm-hmm.
- Okay?
00:35:37.014 --> 00:35:39.266
We told her, "Just choose
which face you like."
00:35:39.266 --> 00:35:41.727
- And so she can then to--
so she can read, right?
00:35:41.727 --> 00:35:43.479
- Yes.
00:35:48.067 --> 00:35:50.319
- On Facebook, of course you
have to look at the comments,
00:35:50.319 --> 00:35:52.071
like, see what
are people saying.
00:35:52.071 --> 00:35:53.197
And they're, like--
some of them
00:35:53.197 --> 00:35:54.615
were really supportive,
of course.
00:35:54.615 --> 00:35:56.242
Some of them were like,
"Oh, great!
00:35:56.242 --> 00:35:58.661
It's so great that someone
is doing something about it."
00:35:58.661 --> 00:36:02.415
Some of them, you know,
they used very harsh language.
00:36:02.415 --> 00:36:04.041
But, like, some of them
were saying, like,
00:36:04.041 --> 00:36:05.251
that it was
a symbol of oppression,
00:36:05.251 --> 00:36:07.670
and it's awful
that I'm doing this.
00:36:07.670 --> 00:36:10.131
Some people said,
"Oh, we already have one,"
00:36:10.131 --> 00:36:13.467
and they added the bomb emoji.
It's...
00:36:13.467 --> 00:36:15.428
Ah!
00:36:15.428 --> 00:36:18.431
[light dramatic music]
00:36:33.279 --> 00:36:35.156
[faint conversation]
00:36:35.156 --> 00:36:41.078
Once the emoji is included
onto our keyboards,
00:36:41.078 --> 00:36:43.706
hopefully it will normalize
the idea of a hijab
00:36:43.706 --> 00:36:46.208
and Muslim head coverings.
00:36:52.965 --> 00:36:54.300
And if it doesn't pass,
00:36:54.300 --> 00:36:57.261
it's--
be interesting to know why.
00:37:56.070 --> 00:37:59.073
[leaf blower running]
00:38:07.081 --> 00:38:08.749
- Yahoo.
00:38:08.749 --> 00:38:13.462
This one was, uh,
the emoji diversity lobby,
00:38:13.462 --> 00:38:16.382
and they created an emoji
that looked like me.
00:38:16.382 --> 00:38:19.093
Look at this.
[chuckles]
00:38:19.093 --> 00:38:22.430
I get a lot of emails
from reporters and stuff.
00:38:22.430 --> 00:38:24.473
Everybody wants to talk
about Unicode, you know?
00:38:24.473 --> 00:38:26.851
So I said, "I can tell you
about my experi--"
00:38:26.851 --> 00:38:29.353
The only story
I can tell is my own.
00:38:31.188 --> 00:38:36.444
Here are some of the proposals
that we submitted to Unicode.
00:38:36.444 --> 00:38:38.571
This is the very first one.
00:38:38.571 --> 00:38:42.241
Uh, this is dated, uh,
April of 2014.
00:38:45.286 --> 00:38:49.373
I think we started off
with the five skin tones,
00:38:49.373 --> 00:38:52.376
the police officer,
the female and male.
00:38:52.376 --> 00:38:54.587
[quiet music]
00:38:56.339 --> 00:38:59.467
Well, my daughter
introduced me to it.
00:38:59.467 --> 00:39:00.843
She came home,
she says,
00:39:00.843 --> 00:39:03.220
"It sure would be nice
to be able to send an emoji
00:39:03.220 --> 00:39:05.431
to my friend that
looks like me."
00:39:05.431 --> 00:39:06.724
I said, "Oh, really?"
00:39:06.724 --> 00:39:08.934
I said, "That sounds great.
What is an emoji?"
00:39:10.519 --> 00:39:12.021
After I did the research,
I mean,
00:39:12.021 --> 00:39:14.482
there are trillions
of these that are sent
00:39:14.482 --> 00:39:18.944
by way of text messaging
every year all over the world,
00:39:18.944 --> 00:39:22.740
and they were all Caucasian.
00:39:22.740 --> 00:39:26.077
And if you're sending
these images to people
00:39:26.077 --> 00:39:30.122
and they all look like
somebody else, you know,
00:39:30.122 --> 00:39:32.333
it's--it just doesn't
make you feel good.
00:39:32.333 --> 00:39:35.878
You do it because that's
the only option you have.
00:39:40.925 --> 00:39:42.802
I said,
"This is a huge opportunity
00:39:42.802 --> 00:39:46.013
to represent everybody."
00:39:46.013 --> 00:39:47.640
I said,
00:39:47.640 --> 00:39:51.560
"I'm not gonna just do one.
I'm gonna do five skin tones."
00:39:53.270 --> 00:39:56.107
When I gave
my presentation there,
00:39:56.107 --> 00:39:59.527
it was folks just sitting
around a table,
00:39:59.527 --> 00:40:04.782
and I was real adamant
about what would be acceptable.
00:40:06.659 --> 00:40:09.036
And the whole room got quiet.
00:40:11.998 --> 00:40:14.292
And they said to me,
00:40:14.292 --> 00:40:18.004
"No one was taking
diverse emojis seriously
00:40:18.004 --> 00:40:20.256
until you came
and gave your presentation."
00:40:26.053 --> 00:40:28.180
You touch the screen,
00:40:28.180 --> 00:40:31.809
and the five skin tones
pop up.
00:40:31.809 --> 00:40:35.604
You let the user decide
what color representation
00:40:35.604 --> 00:40:38.232
that they're interested in.
00:40:38.232 --> 00:40:41.319
I didn't realize
it would be so impactful,
00:40:41.319 --> 00:40:42.528
but it has been.
00:40:54.290 --> 00:40:57.710
- And two, to the side,
and to the front.
00:40:57.710 --> 00:41:00.379
- Can you just walk regular?
00:41:00.379 --> 00:41:03.090
- Heart,
and then another heart,
00:41:03.090 --> 00:41:08.137
and then, um, me--
and then a heart,
00:41:08.137 --> 00:41:11.182
and a smiley face.
00:41:11.182 --> 00:41:15.978
And another heart
and a puppy and a heart,
00:41:15.978 --> 00:41:20.191
and then two hearts,
and I hit send.
00:41:22.360 --> 00:41:26.405
- Maya started using emoji
at the age of three and four.
00:41:26.405 --> 00:41:28.199
I think at the beginning
00:41:28.199 --> 00:41:31.535
she picked pictures
that she liked herself.
00:41:31.535 --> 00:41:32.995
You know,
it was almost more like
00:41:32.995 --> 00:41:35.289
she was sharing her artwork
in the way that you would,
00:41:35.289 --> 00:41:36.624
you know, coming home
from preschool saying,
00:41:36.624 --> 00:41:38.960
"Look what I drew today."
00:41:38.960 --> 00:41:41.212
But I think
it changed over time.
00:41:41.212 --> 00:41:45.174
- I use that one for Mommy
and that one for Daddy.
00:41:45.174 --> 00:41:47.009
[light music]
00:41:47.009 --> 00:41:50.638
- She would look for an image
of herself or her family.
00:41:50.638 --> 00:41:52.515
She would always look for
the little girl with pigtails
00:41:52.515 --> 00:41:55.017
'cause she often
has her hair in pigtails.
00:41:56.727 --> 00:41:59.397
- And in fact, this morning,
um, she actually asked me
00:41:59.397 --> 00:42:03.359
to be her assistant
because the--
00:42:03.359 --> 00:42:05.611
you know, the process
of touching the emoji
00:42:05.611 --> 00:42:07.530
to bring up the skin tone
and then selecting
00:42:07.530 --> 00:42:11.575
the one you want is kind of
a--a two-step process,
00:42:11.575 --> 00:42:14.036
and she wanted to set
all the emojis by default
00:42:14.036 --> 00:42:16.539
to the one that looked
a little bit more Asian,
00:42:16.539 --> 00:42:18.958
um, for our family members.
00:42:18.958 --> 00:42:22.545
- I'm gonna do the ones
I wanna be when I grow up:
00:42:22.545 --> 00:42:28.759
a scientist, a teacher,
a doctor, and a professor.
00:42:47.111 --> 00:42:50.114
[quiet electronic music]
00:43:19.477 --> 00:43:21.479
[faint conversations]
00:43:38.579 --> 00:43:40.289
- [laughs]
00:43:43.417 --> 00:43:46.295
And this...
00:43:47.922 --> 00:43:50.925
[camera shutter clicking]
00:43:54.345 --> 00:43:56.347
- Yeah!
00:44:08.526 --> 00:44:11.404
- Si, senora.
00:44:13.823 --> 00:44:14.824
- Mm-hmm.
00:44:16.284 --> 00:44:17.952
- Si.
00:44:22.164 --> 00:44:24.041
- Mm.
00:44:24.041 --> 00:44:25.042
- Si.
00:44:29.130 --> 00:44:30.756
Uh-huh.
00:44:43.644 --> 00:44:45.646
- Mm.
00:45:00.745 --> 00:45:02.330
- Si.
00:45:24.685 --> 00:45:25.686
No?
00:45:54.465 --> 00:45:56.509
- Yup.
00:45:56.509 --> 00:45:59.679
- [groans, laughs]
00:46:02.014 --> 00:46:04.183
- You're gonna be just fine.
00:46:12.441 --> 00:46:15.444
[faint music playing]
00:46:19.407 --> 00:46:21.826
- Hi.
- Come on in.
00:46:24.704 --> 00:46:27.707
[quiet dramatic music]
00:46:32.920 --> 00:46:34.964
- Unicode is something
in the technical world
00:46:34.964 --> 00:46:38.592
that we describe
as the plumbing, you know?
00:46:38.592 --> 00:46:40.511
So, you--you know,
in someone's house,
00:46:40.511 --> 00:46:42.596
no one ever looks
at their pipes or--
00:46:42.596 --> 00:46:44.598
you know,
unless they break.
00:46:44.598 --> 00:46:47.560
We were living
underneath the radar,
00:46:47.560 --> 00:46:50.521
but once we started encoding
emoji characters,
00:46:50.521 --> 00:46:53.733
all of a sudden we were--
became very visible.
00:47:13.502 --> 00:47:15.338
Our emoji subcommittee,
00:47:15.338 --> 00:47:17.590
they had to start
managing hundreds
00:47:17.590 --> 00:47:21.302
and even thousands of proposals
that were coming in to us,
00:47:21.302 --> 00:47:24.180
and how can this small group
of people actually,
00:47:24.180 --> 00:47:25.806
you know,
get their arms around it
00:47:25.806 --> 00:47:30.061
and analyze them, um,
with some consistency?
00:47:30.061 --> 00:47:33.439
People do try to follow
the selection criteria,
00:47:33.439 --> 00:47:36.692
and then, of course,
people's prejudices set in,
00:47:36.692 --> 00:47:39.737
so I think we don't have
so many vegetables
00:47:39.737 --> 00:47:42.448
because I think most of
the emoji subcommittee members
00:47:42.448 --> 00:47:44.075
don't like vegetables.
00:47:44.075 --> 00:47:46.202
That's my theory.
[laughs]
00:47:46.202 --> 00:47:48.788
So there are--
there are a lot of unique ways
00:47:48.788 --> 00:47:52.917
where it seems like people's
biases cr--do creep in.
00:47:52.917 --> 00:47:55.753
- We only have a small device
to fit these on, okay?
00:47:55.753 --> 00:47:58.714
So, uh, you know, when fonts
take up a lot of space
00:47:58.714 --> 00:48:01.258
and computer programs on here
take up a lot of space
00:48:01.258 --> 00:48:03.928
and the characters themselves
take up a lot of space--
00:48:03.928 --> 00:48:06.806
and, really, you don't want
to be paging across here
00:48:06.806 --> 00:48:08.224
through thousands of emoji
00:48:08.224 --> 00:48:10.559
that you're not interested in
just to say,
00:48:10.559 --> 00:48:13.729
"Hey, friends, uh,
let's go for food and drink."
00:48:15.147 --> 00:48:17.566
We have to exercise
some scrutiny
00:48:17.566 --> 00:48:21.278
about how this will affect
all the pieces of the system.
00:48:41.007 --> 00:48:42.758
- The campaign went over
Friday,
00:48:42.758 --> 00:48:45.469
and, like, um,
I got a text from Carmen,
00:48:45.469 --> 00:48:46.804
my boss,
basically saying, like,
00:48:46.804 --> 00:48:48.139
"You need to have
a look at Twitter,"
00:48:48.139 --> 00:48:52.018
because there was
a lot of, um,
00:48:52.018 --> 00:48:56.689
interesting comments,
I would say, yeah, um--
00:48:56.689 --> 00:48:58.983
"What the unholy fuck?"
00:48:59.942 --> 00:49:04.447
"Once again women prove to have
no creativity and imagination."
00:49:04.447 --> 00:49:06.782
"Now I want
a morning boner emoji
00:49:06.782 --> 00:49:10.036
that I can share
with the world every day."
00:49:10.036 --> 00:49:12.413
"I want a shitty diaper emoji."
00:49:12.413 --> 00:49:14.165
Um, yeah.
00:49:14.165 --> 00:49:16.250
I've worked for charities for,
like, quite a few years,
00:49:16.250 --> 00:49:18.878
but when I spoke to my family
about it over Christmas,
00:49:18.878 --> 00:49:21.088
they were--they were a bit,
like, perplexed.
00:49:21.088 --> 00:49:22.923
Like, you know,
they're like,
00:49:22.923 --> 00:49:25.217
"What--what--
what are you doing?
00:49:25.217 --> 00:49:28.179
Why--why are you doing this?"
[laughs]
00:49:28.179 --> 00:49:31.223
I never really thought about
the stigma attached to it.
00:49:32.475 --> 00:49:35.478
[mellow music]
00:49:37.563 --> 00:49:40.566
[keyboards clacking]
00:49:43.277 --> 00:49:46.697
- As far as we know,
the period pants emoji,
00:49:46.697 --> 00:49:49.742
which was the winning emoji
from our campaign,
00:49:49.742 --> 00:49:52.078
was "stuck in subcommittee,"
00:49:52.078 --> 00:49:54.872
uh, which I-I don't know
exactly what that means,
00:49:54.872 --> 00:49:59.585
but that is the official line
of the Unicode Consortium.
00:50:00.544 --> 00:50:02.421
- I was talking to someone
there, and I was, like,
00:50:02.421 --> 00:50:04.006
"Can you please tell us
what's happening?"
00:50:04.006 --> 00:50:05.383
And they were just like,
00:50:05.383 --> 00:50:07.134
"We have no information
forthcoming at this time."
00:50:07.134 --> 00:50:08.636
- And that was, like,
three months later, wasn't it?
00:50:08.636 --> 00:50:10.012
- It's, like, three months.
- Yeah.
00:50:10.012 --> 00:50:11.597
- It's just like,
"What--what is going on?"
00:50:11.597 --> 00:50:13.516
It's all very secretive.
00:50:13.516 --> 00:50:17.228
- What we did get was
a--a small amount of feedback
00:50:17.228 --> 00:50:20.481
that it is not general
use enough.
00:50:20.481 --> 00:50:22.066
But you know, what I found
really interesting
00:50:22.066 --> 00:50:24.777
was looking at the emojis
that already exist.
00:50:24.777 --> 00:50:27.571
I felt like we had
such a good case for ours
00:50:27.571 --> 00:50:30.324
because it affects
so many people, you know?
00:50:30.324 --> 00:50:31.826
- Yeah.
00:50:31.826 --> 00:50:34.287
- It's so--800 million people
are menstruating right now.
00:50:34.287 --> 00:50:36.747
800 million people could use
00:50:36.747 --> 00:50:38.749
a period emoji
in this very moment.
00:50:38.749 --> 00:50:40.251
I don't know how many people
are talking about
00:50:40.251 --> 00:50:42.461
broccoli right now.
00:50:42.461 --> 00:50:45.464
[inquisitive music]
00:51:02.815 --> 00:51:06.819
- I feel that there is a duty
for emojis to reflect society.
00:51:06.819 --> 00:51:08.112
- Mm-hmm.
00:51:08.112 --> 00:51:09.613
- But I mean, you know,
it's--it's difficult
00:51:09.613 --> 00:51:12.450
to get change done when you've
got the Unicode Consortium,
00:51:12.450 --> 00:51:14.994
this shady organization
based in,
00:51:14.994 --> 00:51:17.413
like, you know,
Silicon Valley or whatever,
00:51:17.413 --> 00:51:19.582
like, controlling everything.
00:51:30.468 --> 00:51:33.012
- You know, I mean,
this is all a bit silly, right?
00:51:33.012 --> 00:51:36.223
Emoji, it's not, like,
the most important topic.
00:51:36.223 --> 00:51:39.101
Emoji is not a serious topic
in computer science.
00:51:41.854 --> 00:51:43.689
You know, if you look,
the history of people
00:51:43.689 --> 00:51:45.608
putting little pictures
in-line in their text,
00:51:45.608 --> 00:51:47.568
I mean, it has
a very long history.
00:51:47.568 --> 00:51:49.528
If you look here,
00:51:49.528 --> 00:51:51.447
this is from
the "Book of Kells,"
00:51:51.447 --> 00:51:54.200
you know, which is
a Irish medieval manuscript
00:51:54.200 --> 00:51:56.202
of the--the Christian gospels,
00:51:56.202 --> 00:51:58.579
and there's all these little
in-line pictures in the text,
00:51:58.579 --> 00:52:01.040
like, these mythical
Irish creatures.
00:52:01.040 --> 00:52:04.210
Just kind of like emoji today
except much more beautiful.
00:52:04.210 --> 00:52:06.587
So the idea that
we'd limit ourselves to--
00:52:06.587 --> 00:52:08.089
you know,
to the Unicode ones,
00:52:08.089 --> 00:52:11.050
it just seems like we're
setting our sights a bit low.
00:52:11.050 --> 00:52:15.179
The fact that you can't
even use an emojum that's not,
00:52:15.179 --> 00:52:16.722
you know,
on the official list,
00:52:16.722 --> 00:52:20.184
like, that's crazy.
[scoffs]
00:52:20.184 --> 00:52:21.894
You know, the Internet
was founded in part
00:52:21.894 --> 00:52:23.354
on a sort of libertarian ethos.
00:52:23.354 --> 00:52:26.273
Everyone should be able
to do sort of what they want.
00:52:26.273 --> 00:52:28.985
Um, and so what I think
consistent with that ethos
00:52:28.985 --> 00:52:30.444
would be a world
where anyone could send
00:52:30.444 --> 00:52:32.363
whatever in-line pictures
they want.
00:52:32.363 --> 00:52:35.324
[light dramatic music]
00:52:35.324 --> 00:52:36.659
I mean, people say,
00:52:36.659 --> 00:52:38.995
"Oh, emoji, it's a new,
emerging language."
00:52:38.995 --> 00:52:40.997
You know, you've heard
people say that.
00:52:40.997 --> 00:52:43.582
But if--if it's really
a new, emerging language,
00:52:43.582 --> 00:52:45.209
it shouldn't be controlled
by some committee
00:52:45.209 --> 00:52:47.753
in San Jose, California,
of, like, predominantly white,
00:52:47.753 --> 00:52:49.588
predominantly male
text-encoding geeks, right?
00:52:49.588 --> 00:52:52.216
That's not a good way
to--to run a language.
00:53:06.022 --> 00:53:09.525
- [whistling]
00:53:09.525 --> 00:53:10.526
Oh.
00:53:15.823 --> 00:53:18.909
So this is
the Silicon Valley.
00:53:18.909 --> 00:53:22.330
That's where
the Stanford University is.
00:53:22.330 --> 00:53:24.915
It's a good school.
00:53:30.254 --> 00:53:31.756
Main office.
00:54:00.534 --> 00:54:03.537
[clock ticking]
00:54:09.001 --> 00:54:11.587
[cat meowing]
00:54:11.587 --> 00:54:13.422
- What I want to talk
to you about is
00:54:13.422 --> 00:54:17.635
what we're going to do with
I and J in the passion poem.
00:54:17.635 --> 00:54:20.012
You see, N and U
look exactly the same,
00:54:20.012 --> 00:54:22.682
and I and J, we know
that there are two sounds,
00:54:22.682 --> 00:54:25.685
but the letter J didn't really
exist, et cetera, et cetera,
00:54:25.685 --> 00:54:27.311
so I want to talk
about that for--
00:54:27.311 --> 00:54:29.855
it's a--a transcription issue.
Okay.
00:54:29.855 --> 00:54:32.525
- [indistinct speech]
00:54:32.525 --> 00:54:34.735
- I use them.
I'm not an enemy of emoji.
00:54:34.735 --> 00:54:36.112
I've invented
a bunch of e--
00:54:36.112 --> 00:54:38.489
I personally have
invented emoji.
00:54:38.489 --> 00:54:41.492
[low playful music]
00:54:41.492 --> 00:54:45.705
I-I've never been an enemy.
I have some criticisms.
00:55:11.022 --> 00:55:12.732
Number one,
we should not be
00:55:12.732 --> 00:55:15.359
trying to add more and more
and more and more emoji
00:55:15.359 --> 00:55:19.113
because it's just
gonna get complicated.
00:55:19.113 --> 00:55:24.535
There are currently
1,182 characters.
00:55:24.535 --> 00:55:29.540
It looks like they want to add
in, like, 60 characters a year.
00:55:29.540 --> 00:55:31.876
Adding a large number of emoji,
number one,
00:55:31.876 --> 00:55:33.586
it's a maintenance issue
for everybody.
00:55:33.586 --> 00:55:35.880
Number two, it's expensive
for any implementers
00:55:35.880 --> 00:55:38.716
because they have to pay
artists to draw all this stuff.
00:55:38.716 --> 00:55:39.884
And number three,
you know,
00:55:39.884 --> 00:55:42.428
well, how far--
how far does it go?
00:55:42.428 --> 00:55:44.889
Now we're at a situation
where people were starting
00:55:44.889 --> 00:55:49.185
to have online petitions
to get this one or that one,
00:55:49.185 --> 00:55:52.480
and the user community
seems to feel that,
00:55:52.480 --> 00:55:53.898
"I need to express myself,
00:55:53.898 --> 00:55:55.441
"and this doesn't
show me properly,
00:55:55.441 --> 00:55:59.362
and so it--you know,
we should add more things."
00:55:59.362 --> 00:56:03.449
The problem is that it--it's--
it's impossible to achieve
00:56:03.449 --> 00:56:06.494
because somebody's always
going to be left out.
00:56:06.494 --> 00:56:09.330
[calm music]
00:56:09.330 --> 00:56:12.291
[birds chirping]
00:56:23.928 --> 00:56:27.765
- So I think it's exactly
because emoji are being used
00:56:27.765 --> 00:56:32.061
to express people's feelings
and their identities
00:56:32.061 --> 00:56:34.605
and their relationships
that they feel the need
00:56:34.605 --> 00:56:36.399
to be represented there, right?
00:56:36.399 --> 00:56:38.985
Because here's this--
this resource that's available
00:56:38.985 --> 00:56:41.946
to us to give out hearts
and smiley faces,
00:56:41.946 --> 00:56:44.115
but then I scroll
over a few screens,
00:56:44.115 --> 00:56:45.950
and I see a bunch of people
that don't look like me
00:56:45.950 --> 00:56:48.536
or don't represent me
or the things I care about
00:56:48.536 --> 00:56:50.079
or do day-to-day,
00:56:50.079 --> 00:56:51.914
and that suddenly starts
feeling off,
00:56:51.914 --> 00:56:53.291
and it,
in some ways,
00:56:53.291 --> 00:56:57.378
colors the happy, smiley faces
and the--the red hearts.
00:57:00.631 --> 00:57:03.634
This is a platform
in which people can say,
00:57:03.634 --> 00:57:06.721
"I am or do not belong."
00:57:08.472 --> 00:57:10.182
- There is this
fundamental tension
00:57:10.182 --> 00:57:13.311
between what people want
and what the Unicode Consortium
00:57:13.311 --> 00:57:16.731
and the companies are able
to pass on a regular basis.
00:57:18.065 --> 00:57:20.359
We have bearded people, and
we have white-haired people,
00:57:20.359 --> 00:57:23.362
but do we need bearded
white-haired people?
00:57:23.362 --> 00:57:27.325
Or, like, interracial couple
emojis, diverse families?
00:57:27.325 --> 00:57:28.909
At a certain point,
you're looking at
00:57:28.909 --> 00:57:30.828
tens of thousands
of new characters,
00:57:30.828 --> 00:57:33.039
and ultimately
this is a system
00:57:33.039 --> 00:57:37.710
that might implode
underneath the huge demand.
00:57:41.881 --> 00:57:44.884
[sirens blaring faintly]
00:57:58.272 --> 00:58:01.275
[light dramatic music]
00:59:57.808 --> 00:59:59.393
- You know,
when we first showed
00:59:59.393 --> 01:00:01.312
the Picassos or Matisses,
01:00:01.312 --> 01:00:03.022
people questioned
whether that was art,
01:00:03.022 --> 01:00:05.483
and now nobody even
questions that anymore.
01:00:05.483 --> 01:00:09.236
And we want them to be
thought of in that same way,
01:00:09.236 --> 01:00:11.364
for people to take the critical
thinking they applied
01:00:11.364 --> 01:00:13.282
to a modernist painting
and apply that
01:00:13.282 --> 01:00:16.577
to Shigetaka Kurita's emoji.
01:00:16.577 --> 01:00:19.455
[brisk uplifting music]
01:00:19.455 --> 01:00:22.166
[indistinct chatter]
01:00:35.930 --> 01:00:37.348
- The Museum of Modern Art
01:00:37.348 --> 01:00:39.767
is about acquiring
the art of our time,
01:00:39.767 --> 01:00:43.521
and the digital dimension of
our lives today is so important
01:00:43.521 --> 01:00:46.607
that we have been looking
at it for quite a while.
01:00:46.607 --> 01:00:50.111
The emoji is just
the most recent acquisition,
01:00:50.111 --> 01:00:52.154
but possibly one
of the most important.
01:01:00.538 --> 01:01:01.872
- Design, of course,
has a function.
01:01:01.872 --> 01:01:03.374
It's got a job to do,
01:01:03.374 --> 01:01:05.835
and emoji do this incredible
job of helping bring back
01:01:05.835 --> 01:01:07.795
the human into digital
communication.
01:01:12.675 --> 01:01:15.678
[laughter]
01:01:37.199 --> 01:01:40.077
- Where are emoji headed?
01:01:40.077 --> 01:01:45.249
I can see a couple of
different possibilities.
01:01:45.249 --> 01:01:48.753
One possibility is that
they could be superseded
01:01:48.753 --> 01:01:53.674
by some other type
of graphical communication.
01:01:53.674 --> 01:01:55.509
Another possibility would be
01:01:55.509 --> 01:02:00.765
that the repertoire
of the emoji would shrink down.
01:02:00.765 --> 01:02:04.644
That's happened
with emoticons.
01:02:04.644 --> 01:02:07.772
And then there's the idea
that emoji would develop
01:02:07.772 --> 01:02:10.650
into more of
a graphical language.
01:02:10.650 --> 01:02:13.569
[curious music]
01:02:13.569 --> 01:02:15.863
I think that these--
that these patterns
01:02:15.863 --> 01:02:17.615
and these creative innovations
01:02:17.615 --> 01:02:19.617
that are making it
more language-like
01:02:19.617 --> 01:02:22.995
will emerge among users.
01:02:22.995 --> 01:02:26.332
That's what the people
are doing from the ground up.
01:02:26.332 --> 01:02:29.460
[lively music]
01:02:29.460 --> 01:02:31.629
- We still have only
12 ocean emojis,
01:02:31.629 --> 01:02:33.005
two of which are whales,
01:02:33.005 --> 01:02:36.425
uh, most of which are
shallow-water animals,
01:02:36.425 --> 01:02:41.055
and angler fish in general
are iconic deep sea species.
01:02:41.055 --> 01:02:43.307
- And the puffins
are really iconic species
01:02:43.307 --> 01:02:46.018
for the High Arctic, but also
people use them as cute.
01:02:46.018 --> 01:02:48.270
I've also seen a "no puffin,"
like, you put a little
01:02:48.270 --> 01:02:50.356
"no" sign on top of the puffin
as no smoking.
01:02:50.356 --> 01:02:53.359
[faint conversations]
01:02:55.111 --> 01:02:58.572
- I thought that the set
of emoji could be improved
01:02:58.572 --> 01:03:01.117
by adding members
of the allium family--
01:03:01.117 --> 01:03:05.413
garlic, onion, ramp,
leek, scallion, shallot.
01:03:05.413 --> 01:03:06.956
- I was sending a message
to a friend,
01:03:06.956 --> 01:03:08.499
and I typed "shoe,"
01:03:08.499 --> 01:03:12.837
and immediately the high-heeled
stiletto in red came up,
01:03:12.837 --> 01:03:14.630
and I was like,
"Well, where is the other shoes
01:03:14.630 --> 01:03:17.550
that all these women wear
which don't have a heel?"
01:03:17.550 --> 01:03:19.969
- I think we need the cannabis
leaf emoji because, uh,
01:03:19.969 --> 01:03:24.181
legalization is happen--it has
happened, and it's spreading.
01:03:24.181 --> 01:03:27.143
- The sewing needle
is certainly as key
01:03:27.143 --> 01:03:31.439
to human existence
as the hammer.
01:03:39.530 --> 01:03:41.866
[cheerful music]
01:03:41.866 --> 01:03:44.243
- We sent a letter to
the Unicode Consortium saying,
01:03:44.243 --> 01:03:46.287
you know,
"This is outrageous.
01:03:46.287 --> 01:03:48.873
"We've got crab emojis.
We've got all these--
01:03:48.873 --> 01:03:52.168
all these other kinds
of emojis--no lobster."
01:03:52.168 --> 01:03:54.712
[faint conversation]
01:03:54.712 --> 01:03:57.673
[mouse clicking]
01:04:00.718 --> 01:04:04.972
- Being part of this group that
encodes new emoji characters
01:04:04.972 --> 01:04:07.808
has definitely made me
more popular at parties.
01:04:07.808 --> 01:04:09.226
[laughs]
01:04:09.226 --> 01:04:10.895
Or on airplanes
when I meet people,
01:04:10.895 --> 01:04:12.229
you know,
all of a sudden they go,
01:04:12.229 --> 01:04:14.357
"Wow, you work on that?"
You know?
01:04:14.357 --> 01:04:15.900
[delicate music]
01:04:15.900 --> 01:04:18.653
But we keep talking about
01:04:18.653 --> 01:04:22.031
getting out of the business
of emoji characters
01:04:22.031 --> 01:04:25.826
because we can't respond
to everyone's desires,
01:04:25.826 --> 01:04:29.080
to the true diversity
of the world.
01:04:29.080 --> 01:04:33.084
Unicode doesn't want to define
every emoji character.
01:04:34.126 --> 01:04:37.380
- I'm--I'm stepping in a--
a pile of poo emoji here,
01:04:37.380 --> 01:04:39.882
but the future of emojis
01:04:39.882 --> 01:04:44.720
will not necessarily
still involve Unicode.
01:04:44.720 --> 01:04:50.101
We only hope that there would
be a better answer for emoji
01:04:50.101 --> 01:04:53.312
and--and one that
actually could cater
01:04:53.312 --> 01:04:57.692
more to, uh, the endless
imagination of the human mind.
01:05:07.785 --> 01:05:10.788
[faint conversation]
01:05:19.297 --> 01:05:21.007
- Whoo!
- [speaking Spanish]
01:05:21.007 --> 01:05:22.258
- [laughs]
So thank you so much.
01:05:22.258 --> 01:05:23.884
- Thank you.
- Nice to meet you.
01:05:23.884 --> 01:05:26.137
- Nice to meet you,
and good luck.
01:05:26.137 --> 01:05:27.138
We'll let you know.
01:06:06.552 --> 01:06:08.095
- Mm.
01:06:11.515 --> 01:06:13.893
- Day two.
01:06:34.080 --> 01:06:35.915
- Hmm.
01:06:43.381 --> 01:06:45.174
[cell phone chimes]
01:06:49.553 --> 01:06:51.013
- Jennifer--
01:06:56.727 --> 01:06:59.397
[both scream]
01:07:01.941 --> 01:07:03.609
- Yeah!
- [yells]
01:07:03.609 --> 01:07:06.862
- Oh, yes.
Whoo!
01:07:06.862 --> 01:07:08.823
- [speaking Spanish]
01:07:08.823 --> 01:07:11.284
- Yeah!
- [laughs]
01:07:11.284 --> 01:07:13.119
- [speaking Spanish]
01:07:13.119 --> 01:07:15.663
- Oh.
01:07:15.663 --> 01:07:19.583
[both yelling and laughing]
01:07:32.346 --> 01:07:34.432
- [laughs]
01:07:34.432 --> 01:07:37.268
[both speaking Spanish]
01:07:37.268 --> 01:07:39.478
- [speaking Spanish]
01:07:39.478 --> 01:07:42.481
[lively music]
01:07:48.571 --> 01:07:51.532
[keyboard clacking]
01:07:51.532 --> 01:07:54.535
[faint conversations]
01:08:06.297 --> 01:08:09.967
- We went as far as we could
on our first design,
01:08:09.967 --> 01:08:14.138
but Unicode was not open
to taking that design forward,
01:08:14.138 --> 01:08:16.974
so we got a pretty clear no.
01:08:16.974 --> 01:08:19.977
[melancholy music]
01:08:24.732 --> 01:08:28.069
Which, of course,
is a--a shame for us,
01:08:28.069 --> 01:08:29.403
especially for Francis,
01:08:29.403 --> 01:08:32.782
who put so much work
into this.
01:08:33.949 --> 01:08:36.327
Now, you could always
keep campaigning,
01:08:36.327 --> 01:08:38.788
but I think the pragmatic
choice was to say,
01:08:38.788 --> 01:08:41.582
"Well, what could we get
that would also be usable
01:08:41.582 --> 01:08:45.086
as a symbol to talk
about your period?"
01:08:45.086 --> 01:08:48.965
So Francis worked with NHS
on this new design
01:08:48.965 --> 01:08:51.467
and the submission around it.
01:08:51.467 --> 01:08:53.469
- So yeah,
this is the submission
01:08:53.469 --> 01:08:56.597
on the Unicode website,
basically.
01:08:57.807 --> 01:09:00.685
We fed in a bit
with regard to menstruation,
01:09:00.685 --> 01:09:02.937
but obviously blood
is much bigger
01:09:02.937 --> 01:09:04.480
than just menstruation, so.
01:09:07.566 --> 01:09:11.195
Yeah, so I heard
from our contact within Unicode
01:09:11.195 --> 01:09:13.406
that, uh, it seems like
01:09:13.406 --> 01:09:16.867
we potentially have
the blood drop emoji now.
01:09:16.867 --> 01:09:18.744
It's a draft candidate,
and--
01:09:18.744 --> 01:09:21.289
but they reckon that,
like, we've got it, so.
01:09:21.289 --> 01:09:25.293
- So--but that's quite--
because it's so sort of vague,
01:09:25.293 --> 01:09:27.420
it's actually--
it doesn't necessarily
01:09:27.420 --> 01:09:29.171
represent everything
about a period.
01:09:29.171 --> 01:09:30.506
- No.
- No.
01:09:30.506 --> 01:09:32.466
- So that wouldn't have
quite worked, so I just--
01:09:32.466 --> 01:09:34.260
- Maybe it's not
the perfect symbol,
01:09:34.260 --> 01:09:37.346
but I think we--as we found
when we were designing them,
01:09:37.346 --> 01:09:39.890
we'd be hard pushed
to find one perfect symbol,
01:09:39.890 --> 01:09:42.852
so actually,
it's very exciting, um, to see.
01:09:42.852 --> 01:09:44.353
- Yeah.
01:09:44.353 --> 01:09:45.980
Obviously we'll have to
figure out, like,
01:09:45.980 --> 01:09:48.941
how we talk about it in stuff,
but, I mean, you know, it's--
01:09:48.941 --> 01:09:50.151
I don't know, like,
01:09:50.151 --> 01:09:52.361
whether you can have
an emoji for everything.
01:09:52.361 --> 01:09:55.364
[plaintive music]
01:10:01.287 --> 01:10:03.789
- [speaking foreign language]
- [speaking foreign language]
01:10:03.789 --> 01:10:06.500
Mm?
01:10:06.500 --> 01:10:09.962
- [speaking foreign language]
- [speaking foreign language]
01:10:09.962 --> 01:10:12.048
- No, it's not
the baba ghanoush.
01:10:12.048 --> 01:10:13.466
- Take this.
01:10:13.466 --> 01:10:16.218
- Why, you want
the best one, huh?
01:10:17.803 --> 01:10:20.389
- [speaking foreign language]
01:10:22.475 --> 01:10:24.185
- [sighs]
01:10:24.185 --> 01:10:25.519
Okay.
01:10:26.687 --> 01:10:29.940
Okay!
01:10:29.940 --> 01:10:32.777
Install now.
Verifying update.
01:10:32.777 --> 01:10:35.738
- [indistinct speech]
01:10:38.074 --> 01:10:39.992
- Are you ready?
It's next to the turban.
01:10:39.992 --> 01:10:42.036
Where is the turban?
[gasps]
01:10:42.036 --> 01:10:43.913
- Yeah!
- Whoo!
01:10:43.913 --> 01:10:47.083
- Congratulations!
- Thank you!
01:10:47.083 --> 01:10:48.542
- [whistling]
- [speaking foreign language]
01:10:48.542 --> 01:10:50.962
- Whoo!
01:10:52.755 --> 01:10:54.632
I'm gonna change
the group chat today.
01:10:54.632 --> 01:10:57.009
Remember this?
01:10:57.009 --> 01:10:59.512
Now no longer do I need
01:10:59.512 --> 01:11:03.391
the turban emoji
and the girl emoji.
01:11:03.391 --> 01:11:05.351
[laughs softly]
01:11:05.351 --> 01:11:08.020
- No, not only that.
She was selected
01:11:08.020 --> 01:11:11.857
by "TIME's" one of the 30th
most influential teens
01:11:11.857 --> 01:11:14.151
in the world for 2017.
01:11:14.151 --> 01:11:16.529
Way to go, Rayouf.
01:11:16.529 --> 01:11:17.822
- [laughs]
01:11:17.822 --> 01:11:20.700
- Way to go.
Way to go.
01:11:23.244 --> 01:11:26.247
[indistinct conversations]
01:11:27.373 --> 01:11:31.627
Just having it as an idea,
to have it actually be executed
01:11:31.627 --> 01:11:34.964
and just, you know,
done and have it
01:11:34.964 --> 01:11:37.258
on the phone and something,
like, real and tangible--
01:11:37.258 --> 01:11:42.388
- And millions and millions
of, uh, Muslim women,
01:11:42.388 --> 01:11:44.140
you know,
now they feel--
01:11:44.140 --> 01:11:45.683
- This one girl,
she said,
01:11:45.683 --> 01:11:48.519
"Apple doing something right.
Thank you for the emoji."
01:11:48.519 --> 01:11:51.063
And, like, it's so nice that,
you know, like, I--
01:11:51.063 --> 01:11:53.858
people feel this way because,
like, people always say,
01:11:53.858 --> 01:11:55.067
"Oh, it's an emoji.
It's an emoji."
01:11:55.067 --> 01:11:58.029
But if an emoji,
like, could--brings about
01:11:58.029 --> 01:12:02.033
feelings of happiness and,
like, representation, then--
01:12:02.033 --> 01:12:04.076
- That's right, that's right.
- Yeah, it means something.
01:12:04.076 --> 01:12:05.661
- Absolutely.
Of course, of course.
01:12:05.661 --> 01:12:08.331
[quiet electronic music]
01:12:08.331 --> 01:12:11.292
[fireworks exploding]
01:12:33.564 --> 01:12:36.567
[faint chatter]
01:13:21.362 --> 01:13:23.572
- Mm.
01:13:23.572 --> 01:13:26.367
- [speaking Japanese]
01:13:26.367 --> 01:13:29.537
[phone beeps]
01:13:36.585 --> 01:13:39.380
[camera shutter clicks]
01:13:47.179 --> 01:13:49.640
[birds chirping]
01:14:07.074 --> 01:14:08.618
- [indistinct]
01:14:23.466 --> 01:14:26.469
[calm music]
01:15:03.631 --> 01:15:06.592
[PA announcement in Japanese]
01:16:05.985 --> 01:16:08.321
[Brooklyn Queen's "Emoji"]
01:16:08.321 --> 01:16:11.324
[singing]
Send me an emoji
01:16:11.324 --> 01:16:14.827
Send me an emoji
01:16:14.827 --> 01:16:16.495
Send me an emoji
01:16:16.495 --> 01:16:18.080
If you're trying
to show some love
01:16:18.080 --> 01:16:19.790
Send me an emoji
01:16:19.790 --> 01:16:22.960
Heart eyes, kissy face,
Send me an emoji
01:16:22.960 --> 01:16:26.213
Waves with the fire flames,
Send me an emoji
01:16:26.213 --> 01:16:27.882
You don't have to
say a thing
01:16:27.882 --> 01:16:29.467
Just send me an emoji
01:16:29.467 --> 01:16:30.968
Go and click
that smiley face
01:16:30.968 --> 01:16:33.346
And send me an emoji
01:16:33.346 --> 01:16:35.389
Emoji with the crown
is Brooklyn Queen
01:16:35.389 --> 01:16:37.016
Yeah yeah
01:16:37.016 --> 01:16:38.768
Woke up feeling like
the money with the wings
01:16:38.768 --> 01:16:40.227
Yeah yeah yeah
01:16:40.227 --> 01:16:42.647
Drop a 100 for the team,
Yeah yeah
01:16:42.647 --> 01:16:45.608
They dropping eyes when I'm
all up on the scene, yeah
01:16:45.608 --> 01:16:48.903
Heart eyes, kissy face,
Waves with the fire flames
01:16:48.903 --> 01:16:50.529
When you wanna LOL
01:16:50.529 --> 01:16:52.156
Just leave me
the laughing face
01:16:52.156 --> 01:16:53.824
When I'm looking
way too cool
01:16:53.824 --> 01:16:55.451
Smiley face
with the shades
01:16:55.451 --> 01:16:57.036
If you're trying
to show some love
01:16:57.036 --> 01:17:00.289
Drop a heart on my page,
on my page, on my page
01:17:00.289 --> 01:17:03.459
Send me an emoji
01:17:03.459 --> 01:17:05.169
Send me an emoji
01:17:05.169 --> 01:17:06.754
When you wanna LOL
01:17:06.754 --> 01:17:08.381
Just leave me
the laughing face
01:17:08.381 --> 01:17:10.007
If you're trying
to show some love
01:17:10.007 --> 01:17:11.592
Drop a heart on my page
01:17:11.592 --> 01:17:14.845
Heart eyes, kissy face,
Send me an emoji
01:17:14.845 --> 01:17:18.140
Waves with the fire flames,
Send me an emoji
01:17:18.140 --> 01:17:19.642
You don't have to
say a thing
01:17:19.642 --> 01:17:21.310
Just send me an emoji
01:17:21.310 --> 01:17:24.522
Go and put that smiley face
and send me an emoji
01:17:24.522 --> 01:17:27.858
Heart eyes, kissy face,
Send me an emoji
01:17:27.858 --> 01:17:31.070
Waves with the fire flames,
Send me an emoji
01:17:31.070 --> 01:17:32.446
You don't have to
say a thing
01:17:32.446 --> 01:17:34.323
Just send me an emoji
01:17:34.323 --> 01:17:35.783
Go on,
click that smiley face
01:17:35.783 --> 01:17:37.952
And send me an emoji
01:17:37.952 --> 01:17:41.038
Smiley face showing teeth,
It ain't nothing wrong
01:17:41.038 --> 01:17:44.458
Strong woman emoji 'cause
you know we going strong
01:17:44.458 --> 01:17:47.712
Heart eyes to my friends,
I love all y'all
01:17:47.712 --> 01:17:50.131
Hey hey
01:17:50.131 --> 01:17:51.799
Send, send,
send me an emoji
01:17:51.799 --> 01:17:53.801
And it goes straight
to my pocket, pocket
01:17:53.801 --> 01:17:55.803
When I'm going live
they post emojis
01:17:55.803 --> 01:17:57.054
While they watching,
watching
01:17:57.054 --> 01:17:58.556
All they post
is fire flames
01:17:58.556 --> 01:18:00.266
They think that
I'm the hottest, hottest
01:18:00.266 --> 01:18:02.268
Now I'm taking off
They're leaving rockets
01:18:02.268 --> 01:18:05.062
In my comments,
comments, comments
01:18:05.062 --> 01:18:08.316
Send me an emoji
01:18:08.316 --> 01:18:10.026
Send me an emoji
01:18:10.026 --> 01:18:11.569
When you wanna LOL
01:18:11.569 --> 01:18:13.279
Just send me
the laughing face
01:18:13.279 --> 01:18:14.864
If you're trying
to show some love
01:18:14.864 --> 01:18:16.449
Drop a heart on my page
01:18:16.449 --> 01:18:19.702
Heart eyes, kissy face,
Send me an emoji
01:18:19.702 --> 01:18:23.039
Waves with the fire flames,
Send me an emoji
01:18:23.039 --> 01:18:24.415
You don't have to
say a thing
01:18:24.415 --> 01:18:26.208
Just send me an emoji
01:18:26.208 --> 01:18:27.668
Go on,
click that smiley face
01:18:27.668 --> 01:18:29.545
And send me an emoji
01:18:29.545 --> 01:18:32.882
Heart eyes, kissy face,
send me an emoji
01:18:32.882 --> 01:18:34.425
[strumming ukulele ]
01:18:34.425 --> 01:18:39.764
- [singing] If you don't
give us the emoji
01:18:39.764 --> 01:18:44.852
We can come back
the next year
01:18:44.852 --> 01:18:46.687
Yeah
01:18:46.687 --> 01:18:50.900
We don't gonna stop,
Yeah
01:18:50.900 --> 01:18:53.069
We don't gonna stop
01:18:53.069 --> 01:18:57.281
Until we got
the mate emoji
01:18:57.281 --> 01:18:59.116
[laughs]
01:18:59.116 --> 01:19:00.826
Yep