Comment on Is there any significance to people using emojis that match their skin tone?

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EatATaco@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Not 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.

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