Comment on Is there any significance to people using emojis that match their skin tone?
Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 6 months ago
The yellow should be the only one. I find it absolutely idiotic that they needed to include all different skin colors. I think that’s similar to my native language (Finnish) not having gender specific pronouns (hän = he/she) and then someone wanting to come up with ones. That’s “fixing” a problem that didn’t even exist in the first place.
I feel this is like saying the Simpsons, and most of Springfield, aren’t supposed to be white because their skin is yellow.
It’s no surprise the default emoji color is so close to white skin, and it’s no surprise that some people feel a lack of representation by this.
But emoji’s are not derived from the Simpsons. They’re derived from the yellow smiley face ideogram that originated in the 1960s.
It’s yellow, not because it’s supposed to represent whiteness, but because the company colors of the State Mutual Life Assurance Company it was designed for were yellow and black.
I neither said nor implied they were.
My point is that everyone, who is being honest at least, interprets the Simpsons as being white. Do you think they’re white?
Groeing chose yellow because it jumps out, but the characters are all supposed to be white. He could have chosen other colors that pop as well, but settled on yellow, for white people.
As I said, it’s no surprise the default emoji is closest to white skin. Even if that association comes from the Simpsons, emojis didn’t come out until decades after the Simpsons became a cultural mainstay.
My point is that everyone, who is being honest at least, interprets the Simpsons as being white. Do you think they’re white?
Yes, I think they’re white but I think it’s not relevant in a discussion about emojis.
As I said, it’s no surprise the default emoji is closest to white skin. Even if that association comes from the Simpsons, emojis didn’t come out until decades after the Simpsons became a cultural mainstay.
My point is that yellow smiley faces have been a cultural mainstay independent of the Simpsons, and that you grossly overestimate the worldwide cultural impact of the Simpsons. Most of the non-US world didn’t even get the Simpsons on TV until the mid 1990s while smiley face t-shirts and pins were all the rage in the late 1980s and 1990s.
And decades? The Simpsons started in 1989, while the first instant messengers already had smiley face emoticons in the mid 90s.
interestingly, according to one study im half-remembering, people from countries with an ethnic majority see the Simpsons as part of their ethnicity. ie Asian people perceive The Simpsons as Asian.
I’d be curious to see that. I also find it hard to believe because every famous white person who makes a cameo on the show is also yellow.
Why would someone want to add gendered pronouns to a language
For a same reason they want to add emojis with different color skins? Stupidity, thoughtlessnes and virtue signaling.
Why would someone want to add gendered pronouns to a language
For adding specificity to lamguage. If you are talking about several people, the disambiguation can be handy.
We could have add pronouns that distinguish by size, or age, etc.
The really stupid feature of most indo-european is the arbitrary gendering of most nouns.
I like how Japanese does it, just call people by names and titles instead. 2nd person and 3rd pronouns exist but are only rarely used.
I really don’t care what colours of emojis exist. Use them or don’t use them, it’s not that deep.
Actually spending time thinking about coloured emojis is a little strange to me. If someone wants to use a black one, white one, or yellow one just let it be.
You sound like the kind of people that would have proclaimed it’s idiotic to give women rights, or let them vote, or give LGBTQ+ people rights of marriage or whatever. Change is inevitable and just because something has no bearing on your life doesn’t mean it has no bearing on anybodies life.
You sound like the kind of people that would have proclaimed it’s idiotic to give women rights, or let them vote, or give LGBTQ+ people rights of marriage or whatever.
You’re insane.
Care to expand on that?
algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
Maybe you’d feel differently if your country wasn’t 90+% homogeneous with a light skin tone
Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 6 months ago
There are no yellow skinned people where I live
algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
It’s still pretty light if we’re considering the array of skin tones that are throughout humanity. If you weren’t Finnish, but instead African or Indian or South American for example, maybe you wouldn’t feel that yellow was representative of you and your people. Saying yellow is fine for everyone because you feel it’s fine isn’t taking into account the other billions of opinions in the world.
Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 6 months ago
I quess we need a billion more variations of those emojis then. Lets keep paying more attention to the skin color of people. That seems like a great idea.