{"id":94,"date":"2022-01-28T10:24:02","date_gmt":"2022-01-28T15:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unsung.davidpogue.com\/?p=94"},"modified":"2023-10-29T10:24:18","modified_gmt":"2023-10-29T14:24:18","slug":"where-emoji-come-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unsungscience.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/28\/where-emoji-come-from\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Emoji Come From"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Season 1 \u2022 Episode 13<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Each year, the powers that be endow our phones with about 70 new emoji. For 2022, you\u2019ll be getting a mirror ball, a crutch, an X-ray, coral, a ring buoy, and a bird\u2019s nest\u2014with or without eggs in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But who ARE the powers that be? Why do they add the emoji they add? Why do we have a blowfish but not a catfish? Why do we have police car, police officer, and judge, but not handcuffs, jail, or prison?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this hilarious episode, you\u2019ll meet the shadowy figures who choose which symbols get added to the permanent set each year. You\u2019ll hear about the Apple bagel disaster, the Android cheeseburger kerfluffle, and the floating beer-foam episode. And you\u2019ll meet the 15-year-old whose emoji campaign changed the world\u2014and probably got her into Stanford.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Guests: Jennifer Daniel, director of emoji at Google; head of emoji for the Unicode Consortium, Mark Davis, cofounder and president, Unicode Consortium, Rayouf Alhumedi, creator of the hijab emoji<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/unsung.davidpogue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/unsungscience-20220128.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode transcript<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>INTRO<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Emoji are those tiny, colorful pictures we use to liven up our text messages and social-media posts. Every year, our phone keyboards gain 70 new emoji options. For 2022, we\u2019ll be getting a mirror ball, a crutch, an X-ray, coral, a ring buoy, and a bird\u2019s nest with or without eggs in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But where do they come from? Who decides which new symbols become part of the permanent gallery?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: &nbsp; &nbsp; As I understand it, you are in charge of all the emoji on every Android phone, every Google device. You don\u2019t lie there rigid and perspiring (LAUGH) at night?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: &nbsp; Oh, I do. (LAUGH) Every night. (LAUGH)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m David Pogue, and this is \u201cUnsung Science.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>BREAK<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Season 1, Episode 13\u2026There are only two more episodes of \u201cUnsung Science\u201d after this one\u2014so if you have any interest in persuading the big bosses to green-light a Season 2, now would be a good time to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or give this podcast a rating on Spotify. And to spread the word about your new favorite science and tech podcast.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway: Episode 13: Where Emoji Come From. I mean, obviously, you know where emoji come from\u2014on your phone. You tap that little smiley face key on your phone\u2019s keyboard, usually right next to the Space bar. And boom: There are the scrolling screens full of 3,000 tiny, typable pictures\u2014faces, things, animals, flags, and symbols\u2026All ready to drop into whatever you\u2019re typing, to add a little visual nuance or tone to your text message or tweet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: They fill in the gaps that body language or eye contact or volume are lost when you\u2019re speaking in the immediacy of digital communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jennifer Daniel is a creative director for Google\u2014well, she\u2019s actually a bigger deal than that. She\u2019s in charge of&nbsp;<em>all&nbsp;<\/em>emoji on&nbsp;<em>all&nbsp;<\/em>Google software products, including the world\u2019s 2.5 billion Android phones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She\u2019s not just in charge; she and her very small team actually&nbsp;<em>draw&nbsp;<\/em>the emoji. On a laptop, in Adobe Illustrator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: As I understand it, you are in charge of all the emoji on every Android phone, every Google device. It\u2019s you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: I do\u2026 dabble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Because by that calculation, that makes you one of the most viewed artists alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL:&nbsp;<em>(WHISPERS)<\/em>&nbsp;I am?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Billions of people a day look at your stuff!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Too much\u2013 too much pressure. (LAUGH) Too much pressure.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: You don\u2019t lie there rigid and perspiring (LAUGH) at night?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Oh, I do. (LAUGH) Every night. (LAUGH) Should the nose have been pink or brown? Or the rope, well, should it have been a box knot or a different type of knot? Yeah, there\u2019s a little bit of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People who use emoji use them quite a bit. As a species, we send about 10 billion emoji a&nbsp;<em>day.&nbsp;<\/em>Insert your own joke here about \u2014 \u201cand that\u2019s just my 12-year-old!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Emoji show up on signs, in ads, and in academic studies. One guy rewrote \u201cMoby Dick\u201d entirely in emoji. Called\u2014what else?\u2014\u201cEmoji Dick.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2017, there was even a truly awful emoji&nbsp;<em>movie\u2026&nbsp;<\/em>called \u201cThe Emoji Movie.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Movie clip.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But mostly, we use emoji to accompany our typed communication online\u2014our texts, our social-media posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We use them to add a little hint of emotion to our written expressions, although the Japanese word&nbsp;<em>emoji&nbsp;<\/em>has nothing to do with the word&nbsp;<em>emotion.&nbsp;<\/em>That&nbsp;<em>emo&nbsp;<\/em>prefix is just a coincidence; emoji means \u201cpicture writing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: If I send an emoji, that can compensate for the loss of facial expression?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: I would say that it compensates for intent. &nbsp; a lot of emojis are about how you feel and less necessarily how you look.&nbsp; It\u2019s, like, they\u2019re up for interpretation. And so people who text me probably understand how I use emoji that might not be universal.&nbsp; I use the cactus emoji all the time when I\u2019m in a mood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: When would you use the cactus emoji?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: When I\u2019m on my period. Or when I\u2019m just, like, in a bad mood. (LAUGH)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: So it means, you know, \u201cI\u2019m prickly\u2014leave me alone?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Yeah. Like, oh, I\u2019m having a bad day: cactus.&nbsp; It\u2019s like, \u201cI\u2019m the problem, actually.\u201d (LAUGH) Like, \u201cI feel a bit prickly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: I started out using it to take the sting off a textual response that could be taken the wrong way. Like, \u201cThat\u2019s fine.\u201d You know, like, that could be\u2013 \u201cThat\u2019s&nbsp;<em>fine<\/em>.\u201d Or, \u201cthat\u2019s fine!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Yeah, yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: a little smiley makes it clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Yeah, you can be as passive aggressive as you want. (LAUGHTER) It is\u2013 it\u2019s true.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the beginning, there weren\u2019t three thousand emoji to choose from; there were 90.The first phone with a full set of symbols was the DP-211 SW, a fugly1997 phone with a gray LCD screen. You could send any of 90 those symbols\u2014to anyone else who had a DP-211 SW.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many of them are still with us today, including the heart, the surfer, the coffee cup, the 12 clock faces showing different hours, and, of course, the smiling pile of poop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They weren\u2019t what you\u2019d call photorealistic. The designers had only a 12 by 12 grid of pixels to work with, and no color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two years later, interface designer Shigetaka Kurita drew another set for NTT DoCoMo\u2019s first cellular Internet service. 176 emoji, this time in color. They became more famous and more widely used; in fact, they\u2019re in the Museum of Modern Art\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But those early emoji sets were incompatible. You couldn\u2019t send a smiling poop from your J-Phone phone and expect it to show up on a DoCoMo phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile, in the rest of the computer world, the big tech companies were battling a similar incompatibility problem of their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: I\u2019m sure you remember back in the early \u201890s, you\u2019d get a message from someone, and it\u2019d be bunny rabbits and squares and weird symbols and stuff like that\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: That was\u2013 that was that problem. So if I sent you a message on a Mac, &nbsp; I would\u2019ve sent you a curly quote, for example, and you would\u2019ve gotten a curly quote on your Mac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: But if I had Windows?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Then you\u2019d get some random character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: So you guys have solved that problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Well, solved. Yes. (LAUGHTER) I mean, it\u2019s solved as far as the\u2013 the main languages in the world.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: So I can send a message using any letters of my alphabet, or Hebrew, or Arabic\u2013to anyone using any kind of computer, and it\u2019ll show up the right way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Any modern computer. Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s Mark Davis. He solved the Tower of Babel problem among operating systems by founding the Unicode Consortium in 1991.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s a nonprofit group made up of reps from Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and so on. For 30 years, they\u2019ve been getting together to agree on standards, so that a curly quote on my computer won\u2019t show up as a random little box on yours. And for 30 years, Mark Davis has been the president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: So all of the math symbols that you would use, and punctuation, and all of that, is all on Unicode. And around 2000, we got the first proposal for adding emoji to Unicode.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By this time, there were&nbsp;<em>three&nbsp;<\/em>different emoji sets from Japan. The Unicode Consortium agreed to combine them to form one, new, global, universal standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, Mark Davis is clearly the most powerful emoji man on earth. He\u2019s the head of the organization that chooses which new symbols will appear as options on our billions of phones and computers each year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So this was my chance to get to the crux of my quest: To find out where new emoji come from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Originally, we took these characters out of Japan.&nbsp; But then what we decided to do is open up the process, so that instead of just Apple and Google and other companies deciding all by themselves what the new emoji would be, that anybody could file a proposal. So\u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: The public?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Yeah. You.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s true! All you have to do is fill in a form on the Unicode website, and write a proposal, arguing why your new emoji should become part of the permanent, global, ever-evolving set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Give us some information to justify that it\u2019s likely to be reasonably popular. What we don\u2019t wanna do is add a new character that nobody uses. The number of emoji are limited.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Why are they limited?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: They\u2019re limited because the cost of emoji is surprisingly high. If you think of the fact that every time we add one of these, it\u2019s multiplied by the\u2013 how many cell phones are there in the world (LAUGH) now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Billions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: And so there\u2019s constructing the fonts, doing the designs, making sure s\u2013 everything\u2019s consistent, and input. Input, it\u2019s very frustrating for people to have to flip back to get all\u2013 through all the emoji. And the bigger the list gets, the harder it is to find them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, keep in mind that each year, the Consortium gets thousands of proposals from the public\u2014but only about 70 new emoji a year make the cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So don\u2019t even bother proposing an emoji in one of the forbidden categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Then there are some exclusion factors.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: No specific people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: No specific people\u2013 living or dead. We exclude deities. We exclude logos. We exclude also emoji that are designed to have a particular appearance that is associated with a company.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We don\u2019t want it to be transient. So once a character goes into Unicode, it\u2019s there forever. So you and I will be dust, (LAUGH) okay, and it\u2019s still gonna stick around. So it\u2019ll be in computers into the indefinite future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Wow. Okay, so\u2013so no fads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: No fads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: No pet rocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Yeah. And even if we allowed specific people, we\u2019d say, \u201cWell, Justin Bieber, maybe (LAUGH) it\u2019s\u2013 maybe it\u2019s a fad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: He\u2013 he\u2019s\u2013 he\u2019s violation on two counts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: On two counts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Transient&nbsp;<em>and<\/em>&nbsp;a specific person.&nbsp;<em>And<\/em>&nbsp;a deity!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then, you\u2019ve got to show what the new emoji would look like. And it\u2019s got to be legible at tiny sizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: For example, we got a proposal for flaxseed. And aside from whether people are going to be busily sending SMSs with flaxseed in them, (LAUGHTER) the whole issue is, how do I tell it\u2019s flaxseed, and not, you know, little dots?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: (LAUGH) Right, right, right. Are there any good stories of some citizen not working for a computer company, who had an idea, and now that\u2019s an actual emoji?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Sure. One of my favorites is the hijab emoji. And this is a young student in Berlin, originally from Saudi Arabia.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RAYOUF: The reason I wear the hijab is different to many others. But I\u2013 the consensus is to get closer to God, to feel closer to Him. And I think it\u2019s also\u2013 a form of modesty that a lot of people feel empowered in, including me.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rayouf Alhumediwas 15 years old when she discovered a big hole in the emoji set: There was no hijab, the head covering worn byhundreds of millions of Muslim women around the world.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RAYOUF: I mean yeah, I\u2019ve been using emojis for as\u2013 you know, I got my first phone, I think I was 12, 13. &nbsp; But I never really looked at them as\u2013 at a point of representation until the conversation with my friends on the group chat.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She was texting two friends in WhatsApp. Just for fun, they decided to represent themselves using emoji in the name of the group chat.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RAYOUF: And we were creating a group chat name for one another with different emojis as our\u2013 as how we looked like. And I couldn\u2019t find a hijab emoji.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She wound up cobbling together a kind of an equation that implied that she was wearing a hijab: a turban, next to intertwined arrows, next to a girl. But it struck her as a little goofy that the existing emoji set included two different camels, four different mailboxes\u2014but no hijab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: But at that point, you didn\u2019t yet know that mere citizens are allowed to propose emoji.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RAYOUF: Not at all. The idea of, you know, being a creator of an emoji &nbsp; did not pass my mind until I read a Mashable post on Snapchat.&nbsp; And the opening page was, \u201cYou wanna create your own emoji? Here\u2019s how.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: All right, so what was the process of making this proposal?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RAYOUF: I spent around three to four days in my room, you know, curating the perfect proposal for the folks at Unicode Consortium, while my parents thought I was\u2013 typing away a lab report or something. (LAUGHTER)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Wow. And so eventually, you heard back, at some point, that, \u201cCongratulations, your emoji proposal is accepted, and it\u2019s going to be on billions of phones around the world.\u201d Do you remember that moment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RAYOUF: I like\u2013 I didn\u2019t know what to do with myself, exactly.&nbsp; But slowly, I think after it was released officially, I saw it pop up randomly in places that I wouldn\u2019t expect, like celebrities would be using it, or just even on\u2013 just generally on Instagram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then I\u2013 have this moment in my head, like, \u201cWhoo. I\u2013 I\u2013 I did that. That\u2019s\u2013 that\u2019s insane.\u201d Especially that it\u2019s something no one thinks about. Like, when they click an emoji, no one thinks, \u201cOh\u2013 wait, that\u2019s who\u2013 did this.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, any organization that calls itself a&nbsp;<em>consortium&nbsp;<\/em>is, of course, going to have\u2026<em>subcommittees.&nbsp;<\/em>And there is an emoji subcommittee. And Jennifer Daniel of Google is now in charge of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once she, the subcommittee, and the consortium have approved a new symbol for admission to the standard set, that\u2019s not the end of it. Believe it or not, there isn\u2019t one standard hijab emoji, or one standard eggplant emoji. Each tech company has its own staff of artists, and its own house style for the artwork itself.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: How would you characterize them? What\u2019s Google\u2019s?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Well, we\u2019re cute, (LAUGH) humble. I would say cute and simple. We tried not to show off with lots of detail. It really is supposed to be as simple as possible.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Okay. And how about some of other companies?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: So Apple tends to rely more on, like\u2013 high resolution, fancier, more\u2013 more detail. It shows off the retina screens on their phones, (LAUGH) right? It really sells the hardware. &nbsp; It is a real\u2013 it\u2019s a real object that you can touch.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Microsoft is flat, very flat. And they have this,&nbsp; like, big black outline around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Twitter\u2019s great. Twitter has a really interesting font. It\u2019s really simple, much more simple than Google\u2019s actually.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even Rayouf\u2019s hijab emoji is different on each kind of phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RAYOUF: I remember\u2013 working on the tiny details, like what color the hijab should be. Should it be beige to keep it neutral and, you know, have the vendors think of how it should look like? Or like\u2013 a dark blue just for contrast?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: And what did you choose?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RAYOUF: A dark blue for contrast. (LAUGHTER)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Yeah, the one in my iPhone is\u2013 is it purple or\u2013?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RAYOUF: It\u2019s purple, yeah. Apple decided to make it purple, which I personally really like, because it\u2013 it\u2019s\u2013 adds a &nbsp; different\u2013 color palette to the emojis, especially since the turban emoji\u2019s white, it\u2019s cool to have a different color.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[music]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So yeah. The public makes proposals; the Unicode Consortium members vote on which ones should make the cut; and then the individual tech companies draw them. That\u2019s how it works\u2014in theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But what happens if two companies draw the same emoji in different ways\u2014like the time Apple\u2019s emoji for \u201cpistol\u201d was a squirt gun, but Google\u2019s was a real handgun? What happens when the emoji doesn\u2019t reflect equality or diversity? What happens when the public objects to the implications of the way a character is drawn?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And how long will it be before we can design emoji that look&nbsp;<em>exactly&nbsp;<\/em>like ourselves?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My guests and I will answer all of the above\u2014after the break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>BREAK<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back! Before the break, I was describing how each tech company is invited to draw its own version of each emoji.<strong><\/strong>There\u2019s this fantastic website called Emojipedia.org, where you can look at the various companies\u2019 emoji styles side-by-side.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For many years, some of them looked incredibly different. Apple\u2019s emoji for cookie is very obviously a chocolate-chip cookie: Round, brown, with chocolate chips. But until 2018, Samsung\u2019s cookie emoji was a pair of square saltine&nbsp;<em>crackers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes, the different interpretations led to some amusing message confusion\u2014or not so amusing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2016, following a series of police shootings, Apple changed the illustration for its&nbsp;<em>pistol&nbsp;<\/em>emoji from a standard handgun to\u2014a plastic squirt gun. You might have texted someone, \u201cThere\u2019s only one way we\u2019re gonna solve this. Show up tomorrow at the dock. Bring your\u2014squirt gun emoji.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But if they had an Android phone, what they\u2019d get was: \u201cBring your\u2014actual, bullet-firing, revolver emoji.\u201d Which you could argue is a very different meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mark Davis says that the other tech companies were forced to follow suit, if only to avoid having some playground fun turn into gangland slayings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: If you\u2019re using any modern Google phone, then you\u2019ll see also a squirt gun.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: So they\u2019ve all become squirt guns?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: And they\u2019ve all become squirt guns, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: So the\u2013 the squirt gun example, was that sort of a political statement? An anti-gun statement that\u2013 that Apple was making?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: I can\u2019t speak for Apple on that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Well, Google followed suit\u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Google followed suit, but the primary reason why we followed suit is to avoid incompatibility.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These days, the tech companies\u2019 art departments don\u2019t go rogue like that anymore. The Consortium tries to keep their emoji drawings a little more harmonized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That doesn\u2019t mean there\u2019s not still conflict, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Is there such thing as pushback, controversy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Oh, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Is there hate?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Oh, people hate emoji. Of course, they do. Everyone h\u2013 loves and hates everything. I mean, come on. (LAUGH) Go on the internet. You know, everyone\u2019s angry about something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Well, has anyone ever been angry about something that you did?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Probably right now while we\u2019re talking there\u2019s someone angry at me right now. (LAUGH)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Like what?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: I don\u2019t know. I removed an egg from the salad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Oh, tell me the vegan egg story. Go. (LAUGH) This is my favorite story.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Well, &nbsp; you can file bugs against emoji, right? &nbsp; you can send a complaint and say, \u201cThis isn\u2019t working. Please fix it.\u201d So people send that for emoji all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Wow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: So I collected all of those complaints. And I read them.&nbsp; For salad, someone pointed out that the standard description for salad was, \u201ca leafy bowl of greens containing tomato and lettuce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And they pointed out that every salad on all the other phones were leafy greens with tomatoes. But ours had an egg, and that we should remove it to be consistent. And I was like, &nbsp; \u201cWell, let\u2019s try to opt for consistency.\u201d Well, that did not go as planned. (LAUGH)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: What do you mean? (LAUGH)&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: People were really upset about the egg (LAUGH) removal. People have strong opinions about salads. (LAUGH)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: It\u2019s an emoji, people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Yeah, yeah. It\u2019s like our bagel. Remember when Apple rolled out their bagel emoji?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: With no cream\u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: It was untoasted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: \u2013cheese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: No cream cheese. It was, like, no one had been to New York before. It was ridiculous. (LAUGH) And they toasted it. They put a little schmear on there. Now it\u2019s authentic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: So they fixed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: And\u2013 and what\u2019d you do about the salad kerfuffle?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Oh, there\u2019s no egg.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: So the egg went away. And the haters just had to deal with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[music]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then there was the Great Burger Scandal of 2017, in which it was discovered that Google had drawn the cheese&nbsp;<em>under&nbsp;<\/em>the burger patty. Come on, Google. Who does that!? I mean, it\u2019d get the bun all gross!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Google\u2019s CEO Sundar Pichai had to get involved. He&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sundarpichai\/status\/924487551372615680\">tweeted<\/a>, \u201cWill drop everything else we are doing and address on Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&nbsp;<em>think&nbsp;<\/em>he was kidding, because he did include a smiley in his tweet. Not an emoji, but an emoticon\u2014the old style, where you type a colon followed by a parenthesis, so if you turn your head sideways it looks like a smiling face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mark Davis still remembers the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Actually, I loved that. I loved his response to that. And I love the fact that I think afterwards, there was one of our caf\u00e9s at Google (LAUGH) served a version of the hamburger with the cheese on the bottom. (LAUGH) They called it, I think, the Android Hamburger or something like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From his point of view, though, the real crisis was the Beer-Mug Episode of 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Even more embarrassingly, nobody noticed the problem with the beer mugs. You ever seen what the old beer mugs were?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Unh-uh (NEGATIVE).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Well, they had a beer mug and they had the foam on the top. But the foam was kind of sitting on air. (LAUGH) There was no beer in there.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Google fixed that one in Android 8.1\u2014and shortly thereafter, hired Jennifer Daniel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She and the Unicode Consortium quickly became aware of some other problems with the standard emoji set, especially when it came to social representation. For example, every emoji had the same color skin: yellow.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Well, remember, this came out of Japan and the first images were\u2013 targeted to the Japanese market. &nbsp; the images were also people with very light skin. &nbsp; ideally, the people should\u2019ve been all represented with an\u2013 unnatural color like a Homer Simpson or John Boehner color. (LAUGH) So it was\u2013 at that point, what we had to do was we had to look at how to address the system.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What they came up with was a way to choose any of five skin tones for every single emoji that depicts a person. You hold your finger down on the symbol, and a little menu of skin colors pops up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: It wasn\u2019t as simple as adding more emoji. What we wanted to do was add a mechanism so that we could handle all skin tones over all the existing characters and into the future.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So you can combine a character with a skin color. So you can say, well, I want a runner and &nbsp; I want her to have a dark skin color.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: How many skin tone options do we have now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: Well, there\u2019s the\u2013 the generic \u201cno skin tone,\u201d which is kind of orange, yellow orange-ish. And then you have\u2013 five other tones. So you have, you know, very light, medium, dark, and then in\u2013 in between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The skin-tone menu appeared in 2015, but the standard emoji still weren\u2019t a paragon of equity. This 2016 Stephen Colbert monologue made the point nicely:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/8nZWWYtDucw?t=72\">Colbert<\/a>: Let me show you how uneven it is. If you\u2019re a man in the world of emoji, you can be a police officer, a British palace guard, a Santa with a weird flesh beard, a private investigator, a, I wanna say, bike helmet salesperson, a swami, a construction worker who also sells pot, and the saxophone player for Stay Human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That was a visual joke. The mustachioe\u2019d emoji he showed kind of resembles the sax player for Colbert\u2019s own house band.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">COLBERT: Now, on the female side, you could be a, let\u2019s see, a princess bride, a princess, a flamenco dancer, or the two slices of bread in a Hugh Hefner sandwich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s right: As late as 2016, the only professions depicted as women in the standard emoji set were: princess, bride, dancer, or two Playboy bunnies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jennifer Daniel set about fixing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: I noticed that it was reinforcing stereotypes. So all the male\u2013 all the construction workers, not construction man or construction woman, construction worker were all men. And all the emotional ones like \u201cshruggy\u201d or \u201cface palm\u201d or I don\u2019t know, like, \u201chair flip\u201d were all female.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Really?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: So rude! So &nbsp; that\u2019s when I kicked off an initiative to\u2013 to fix it. like, \u201cWe are doing it. We\u2019re gonna change 60\u2013 under 70 emoji to be more ge\u2013 to present themselves to be more gender inclusive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: And that was your project?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: It was.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The emoji set gained two men holding hands in 2015; became gender inclusive in 2016; got gender-neutral emoji in 2019; and mixed-race couples in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But come on\u2014you know how people are. With each of these steps toward inclusiveness, there\u2019s been unpleasantness and pushback. In Rayouf Alhumedhi\u2019s case, even rape threats and death threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RAYOUF: When I proposed the hijab emoji, I knew the unnecessary political connotations that came with the hijab. I wasn\u2019t blind to that. &nbsp; I knew the discussions about how it was a symbol of oppression; I knew the discussions of how, \u201coh, they limit a woman\u2019s freedom,\u201d&nbsp; You know, it\u2019s a symbol of oppression, why should we give it space?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And\u2013 to that I say\u2013 how \u2018bout the\u2013 woman like me, millions of women like me who wear it by choice and wear it proudly? Like, your\u2013 a lot of their views were also you know, taken from\u2013 the media outlets and not from discussions within other Muslim women or, you know, their own personal research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: You had enough support that the hate didn\u2019t make you lie awake nights terrified?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RAYOUF: Yeah, the source of hate I knew came from ignorance. . It was\u2013 you know, a f\u2013 it was\u2013 the person sending the hate not having enough knowledge on the topic they\u2019re talking about, and just&nbsp; regurgitating the echo chambers they\u2019re in. So I knew a lot of the times people disagree with the hijab is because it\u2019s something foreign, something different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[music]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, even after 20 years of expanding the emoji set, people complain that there\u2019s still no hot-air balloon emoji. No triceratops. No glass of white wine. No tumbleweed, no stork, no anvil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And yes, we can now choose a gender, or no gender, and a skin tone. You can now represent yourself if you\u2019re deaf, blind, in a wheelchair, or equipped with a prosthetic limb.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are now emoji for redheads, bald heads, and old people.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But those options aren\u2019t as flexible as the gender and skin tones. You can\u2019t combine them. You can\u2019t make a redheaded old person, or a bald person in a wheelchair. You can\u2019t add freckles, or a mohawk, or a gold tooth. No tattoos or scars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In other words, these aren\u2019t like Apple\u2019s Memoji, where you can make an emoji that looks exactly like you. And the Unicode Consortium says that\u2019s how it\u2019ll stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: So we\u2019ve now added more gender options. We\u2019ve added more skin tone options. So how far is there pressure to go in making emoji look like us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: It\u2019s an alphabet. It\u2019s not an avatar system, right? &nbsp; Like, how many eye colors can you really add to an emoji? And then what can you actually discern on emoji sizes, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: I mean, you\u2019d have to do hair colors, eye colors, hair styles\u2026 so there\u2019s no goal to make all the tools you need to make you look exactly like yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: I would say not. I think we are trying to prioritize what are the meaningful ones that we can do that can scale, &nbsp; making sure that we\u2019re future-proofing it, basically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And speaking of the future: Unicode president Mark Davis is quick to shoot down the idea that emoji are some kind of new universal language, no matter how much that notion has become a trope among bloggers and pundits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DAVIS: One of the myths is that it\u2019s a language.&nbsp; It\u2019s\u2013 it\u2019s a guessing game. It\u2019s\u2013 it\u2019s a puzzle. There aren\u2019t verbs. There aren\u2019t really adjectives. I mean, it\u2019s not a language; it\u2019s a way I think of kind of making up for the lack of gestures and intonation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In fact, in the really long term\u2014the Unicode Consortium would love to get out of the emoji business entirely.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the documentary \u201cThe Emoji Story,\u201d Unicode vice chair Craig Cummings puts it like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>From \u201cThe Emoji Story,\u201d&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">GUY: I\u2019m stepping in a pile of poo emoji here, but the future of emojis will not necessarily still involve Unicode. We only hope that there would be a better answer for emoji, and one that actually could cater more to the endless imagination of the human mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the meantime, people will keep submitting their ideas, and the Consortium will keep giving us our 70 new winners every year. The 2020 set included two new emoji that came from somebody you know\u2014Jennifer Daniel herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Oh, my first emoji proposal finally rolled out. Like, proper proposal. &nbsp; I brought the proposal for \u201csmile with tear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Wow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: So that was\u2013 that was my first. And hugging\u2013 \u201ctwo people hugging.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Wait, wait, wait. But\u2013 but those aren\u2019t new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: They came out this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: But there\u2019s been a smile with a tear forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL:&nbsp;<em>(WHISPERS)&nbsp;<\/em>In your mind. In your mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: There weren\u2019t two people hugging until 2020?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Well, &nbsp; for \u201ctwo people hugging,\u201d we do have \u201chugging face.\u201d Are you familiar with \u201chugging face?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Oh, it\u2019s creepy emoji. It is, like, this big old smile with these two little jazz hands. And it\u2019s like\u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: Oh, that\u2019s supposed\u2013to be hugging?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: Well\u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: I thought it was \u201cjazz hands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: I thought it was groper. (LAUGH) Like, &nbsp; it\u2019s bad news,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: I\u2013 I had no idea that was even supposed to&nbsp;<em>be<\/em>&nbsp;hugging. That\u2019s\u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DANIEL: It isn\u2019t anymore. (LAUGH) And that\u2019s great.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In other news, Rayouf Alhumedhi\u2019s hijab emoji didn\u2019t just give millions of people a new representation option. It also gave her an obvious topic for her college admissions essay. She got into Stanford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGUE: So is\u2013 is there a larger takeaway, a moral of the story from\u2013 from your whole adventure with this trip?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RAYOUF: The moral of the story spans different facets. One\u2013 people have a lot of opinions, and they love to share them on the internet.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And B) was, if I wanted to tackle a certain problem-&nbsp; I should just go ahead and do it, even if there\u2019s problems ara\u2013 along the way. I shouldn\u2019t let the potential thoughts of these problems stop me from pursuing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No, Rayouf, you shouldn\u2019t. And now you\u2019ve got the rest of the world looking forward to whatever you tackle next.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">UNSUNG SCIENCE with David Pogue is presented by Simon &amp; Schuster and CBS News, and produced by PRX Productions.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Executive Producers for Simon &amp; Schuster are Richard Rhorer and Chris Lynch.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The PRX production team is Jocelyn Gonzales, Morgan Flannery, Pedro Rafael Rosado and the project manager is Ian Fox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jesi Nelson composed the Unsung Science theme music, and fact checker<a href=\"mailto:kristina.rebelo@gmail.com\">Kristina Rebelo<\/a>positioned herself nobly between my scripts and certain humiliation. I\u2019d like to thank my research assistant Olivia Noble, for spending hours trolling through movies to help me find my examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For more on Unsung Science episodes, visit unsungscience.com. Go to my website at<a href=\"https:\/\/davidpogue.com\/\">&nbsp;David Pogue.com<\/a>&nbsp;or follow me: @Pogue on your social media platform of choice. Be sure to like and subscribe to Unsung Science wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thanks for listening!<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_7561\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-94-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/unsung.davidpogue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/unsungscience-20220128.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/unsung.davidpogue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/unsungscience-20220128.mp3\">https:\/\/unsung.davidpogue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/unsungscience-20220128.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/unsung.davidpogue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/unsungscience-20220128.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/www.unsungscience.com\/?powerpress_pinw=94-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/unsung.davidpogue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/unsungscience-20220128.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"unsungscience-20220128.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each year, the powers that be endow our phones with about 70 new emoji. For 2022, you\u2019ll be getting a mirror ball, a crutch, an X-ray, coral, a ring buoy, and a bird\u2019s nest\u2014with or without eggs in it.\u00a0But who ARE the powers that be? Why do they add the emoji they add? Why do we have a blowfish but not a catfish? Why do we have police car, police officer, and judge, but not handcuffs, jail, or prison?<span class=\"excerpt-more-link\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unsungscience.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/28\/where-emoji-come-from\/\">More <svg class=\"svg-icon\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" aria-hidden=\"true\" role=\"img\" focusable=\"false\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\"><path fill-rule=\"evenodd\" clip-rule=\"evenodd\" d=\"M6.96954 10.2804L11.9999 15.3107L17.0302 10.2804L15.9695 9.21973L11.9999 13.1894L8.0302 9.21973L6.96954 10.2804Z\" fill=\"currentColor\"\/><\/svg><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"excerpt-audio-block\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/unsung.davidpogue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/unsungscience-20220128.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unsungscience.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unsungscience.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unsungscience.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unsungscience.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unsungscience.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unsungscience.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96,"href":"https:\/\/www.unsungscience.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unsungscience.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unsungscience.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unsungscience.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}