Comment on Is there any significance to people using emojis that match their skin tone?
EatATaco@lemm.ee 4 weeks agoNot it was not and it still isn’t.
It is. Everyone, if they are being honest, knows that Springfield is mostly white. Everyone knows that when a famous white person makes a cameo, and is white, they are yellow and no one is confused as to who it is, or if they are trying to make some racially ambiguous version of that famous person. It’s not just me: everyone gets it.
The reason we think of the Simpsons as white is because the context makes it crystal clear that they’re a typical white suburban family, not because of their color.
If they had given them brown skin, but changed nothing else, would you still be saying it’s “crystal clear that they’re a typical white suburban family”? Of course not. Let’s not be absurd here. Obviously the choice of skin color plays a role in that interpretation.
If you then associate yellowness exclusively with whiteness that’s purely a you thing,
The funny thing is, I didn’t. It was never a thought that cross my mind. You know why? Because I’m white and it represents me. It wasn’t until I saw people start using the non-white ones that I started to realize my privilege in emojis. It wasn’t until I had a discussion about race and the Simpsons yellow did I realize how white that yellow actually is.
My argument is that bright yellow smileys have their own cultural lineage dating back to 1963
Yeah, but at no point have you established that this this history is non-white, or that the success wasn’t the result of being white-adjacent. You just say that because they choose yellow for non-racial reasons, well then yellow can’t be seen as white. But there is a logical leap here. You’ve ignored my point multiple times now that their success might even have to do with being white-adjacent.
SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 4 weeks ago
You keep using that word as if it will somehow transform the color yellow into white and make your argument for you. It won’t happen. It’s yellow, and not just pale yellow but an extremely saturated and bright version of yellow. It is clearly not a natural skin tone of any race unless that person is very ill.
If you look at a white person’s skin tone, it’s not a saturated color and the hue is certainly not yellow. If anything, it’s pink. How you can arrive at “yellow = white-adjacent” just boggles my mind. There are literally billions of people on this planet who are not white and whose skin tone is closer to the yellow of a smiley face. You can call any color with sufficient luminosity white adjacent then. Bright blue: white-adjacent. Bright red: white-adjacent. Bright green: white-adjacent. Wee look at all those white-adjacent colors:
Image
Anyway, I’m done with this discussion because I find you truly insufferable and I no longer want to spend my energy on it. If I can give you one piece of life advice: go find something worthwhile to get up in arms about.
EatATaco@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I’m using it because it describes what I mean. It’s the same reason they chose it for the Simpsons: it’s close enough to being white so there is no confusion as to what race they are.
It was a good conversation until this point, it’s sad that when backed into a corner you were unnecessarily an asshole about it.
But the funniest part about this is that it was the top level comment, that I responded to, that was “up in arms” about there being multiple skin tone colors. Even going so far as to call it “idiotic.” I just pointed out that I don’t believe it is as neutral as they were making it out to be, and explained why some non-white people might not feel represented by it. You then jumped in to attack me based by falsely claiming I said it was based off of the Simpsons.
If anyone is “up in arms” about shit here, it’s you and the top level commentor, not me.