Monday, June 26, 2017

Missing Emoji: 2017

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Thanks to ease and simplicity of PopChar X, now at version 8, I've enjoyed playing with emoji. 

Years back I used to run a server of impossible-to-get music that included techno from Japan. As such, I was introduced to the Japanese versions of 'smilies', called emoticons. I still use a few of them as I prefer their linear design and find them very useful. My favorites are:


(0_o)(o_0) - craziness

(-_-) - sleeping

(^_^) - glee

(^_^)/ - waving

\(^_^)/ - manic glee

There are plenty more.

Then emoji evolved out of the Asian emoticon scene into the font scene. Emoji are in a state of evolution thanks to the expansion of the Unicode Technical Standard (UTS). As a result, there has been an explosion of available emoji as well as a decline in emoticons and smilies. I personally have no trouble mixing them together.


Recently, it has been announced that a collection of new emoji are being officially released and will be coming to the Mac and iOS probably this fall.


Final 2017 Emoji List
Unicode 10.0 is expected to be released in June 2017, and is required for many of the new emojis listed in Emoji 5.0.
The 69 new emoji include magical creatures, steam room, meditation, craziness, shhh, character censored obscenity, monocle face, exploding head, a full range of ages from child to adult, breast feeding, climbing, I Love You hand gesture, brain, winter clothing and sports, new animals, new vegetable, meat, lunch and snack stuff, chopsticks (at long last!), new flags, UFO, yet another heart color and of course vomit.

And yet, despite the already existent, mind boggling collection of now over 600 emoji, there are still many that I consider to be missing. I originally posted most of this list an Apple news website, who chose to censor it. They offered no explanation. I suspect it was my use of humor or my erroneous inclusion of chop sticks. (At last! We have chopsticks!) So I dumped the website from my bookmarks and email, then decided to publish here my list of Missing Emoji: 2017. Please add your own missing emoji in the comments.


My list of still missing emoji, 2017-06-23


Coffee cup, steaming (classic, every coder has one!)

Hula girl (classic)
Grand piano (for dropping, music)
Anvil (for dropping, for blacksmiths)
The rest of the planets. (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) (Yes, Pluto)
Groundhog (Groundhog's Day)
Mole (living in the dark)
Skunk (smelly)
Nuclear explosion (controversial or obvious? You decide. My 6th grade teacher used them as quiz icons)
Donkey (to go with the elephant, of course).
Ice
Ice bucket (challenges)
Infinity ribbon symbol 
Ribbons in campaign colors
Wristbands / Bracelet in campaign colors
Mail humans (mailman & mailwoman)
Blimp / Dirigible (advertising, steampunk, Hindenburg disaster)
Goggles (both steampunk and dieselpunk)
Flying car (ever-promised and never delivered futurist icon)
Fan (air cooling and for the things that hit them, such as the poop emoji)
Acorn (the standard nut)
Candy cane (xmas candy)
Cross-eyed face
Chewing (gum, an idea, a victim's brain, whatever)
Broken glass / mirror (bad luck, accident, crash)
Gravestone (the end)
Wreath (for holidays and graves)
White wine glass (to go with the red wine glass)
Cigar, stogie (to go with the equally addictive cigarette)
Vinyl record (because some people still like them, I have no idea why)
International traffic symbols: Stop, Yield, Slow, Corner, Hill, Intersection, children at play, deaf or blind child, etc.

Google have their own proposed emoji for the purpose of reducing gender inequality. You can find them by clicking on either of the missing female emoji symbols on this page.


:-Derek


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