Where Emoji Come From
Unsung Science
CBS News
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2022
⏱️ 35 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Each year, the powers that be endow our phones with about 70 new emoji. For 2022, you’ll be getting a mirror ball, a crutch, an X-ray, coral, a ring buoy, and a bird’s nest—with or without eggs in it.
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?
In this hilarious episode, you’ll meet the shadowy figures who choose which symbols get added to the permanent set each year. You’ll hear about the Apple bagel disaster, the Android cheeseburger kerfluffle, and the floating beer-foam episode. And you’ll meet the 15-year-old whose emoji campaign changed the world—and probably got her into Stanford.
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
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Every year, our phone keyboards gain 70 new emoji symbols, which we can use to |
| 0:07.8 | liven up our text messages and social media posts. For 2022, you'll be |
| 0:13.5 | getting a mirror ball, a crutch, an x-ray, and a bird's nest, with or without |
| 0:19.1 | exited. But where do they come from? Who decides which new symbols become part |
| 0:25.0 | of the permanent gallery? As I understand it, you are in charge of all the |
| 0:30.4 | emoji on every Android phone, every Google device. You know why they're rigid |
| 0:36.2 | and perspiring at night? Oh, I do. Every night. I'm David Poe, and this is UnSung Science. |
| 0:50.2 | Tired of ads interrupting your gripping investigations? Good news! |
| 0:54.4 | Ad free listening on Amazon Music is included with your Prime membership. Ad shouldn't |
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| 1:26.0 | most damaging spy in FBI history, and his betrayals didn't end there. Do I hate |
| 1:30.6 | him? No, I don't hate anyone. But his motive, I would love to know what his true motive |
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| 1:48.9 | Season one, episode 13. Yeah, there are only two more episodes of UnSung Science |
| 1:54.5 | after this one. So if you have any interest in persuading the big bosses to green light |
| 2:00.2 | a season two, now would be a good time to leave a review on Apple podcasts or give this |
... |
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