The system built normalized prejudice into our emojis. It's bizarre but should be completely unsurprising.
See the thread for more examples. x.com/brookLYNevery1…
In the future, backspacing emojis will be a simple history lesson.
x.com/djnemec/status…
My take: Once we only had light-skinned yellow emojis. There was a call for more diversity in color and constellations (same-gender partnerships, rainbow families). As this was added, the diversity became an add-on, thus leaving in plain sight what was considered default.
So in the ambition to right what enough people in time agreed was wrong, the prejudice is exposed - and cemented - by the order in which ligatures are built.
I agree that it is a feature - and can make logical, programmatic sense - but it dismisses the emotional charge of so clearly displaying in which order history decided they were valid enough for inclusion.
To systematically build in such a way that backspacing always leaves us with the light-skinned yellow man (or only having heterosexual partnerships as a unit) tells us something about society and the makers of tech.
I very much doubt that it is with any expressed intent, or even conscious intent, that these biases are exposed in ligatures. Hence why it is a perfect illustration of something systemic.
I acknowledge that the “white” people ligatures are built the same way, always ending on the yellow man. But those emojis did not come about due to a call for diversity, they were a side-product of it.
And still the light-skinned men prevail.