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

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨HottieAutie@lemmy.dbzer0.com⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I’m asking because as a light-skinned male, I always use the standard Simpsons yellow. I don’t really see other light-skinned people using an emoji that matches their skin tone, but often do see people of color use them. Maybe white people don’t naturally realize a need to be explicit with emoji skin-tone or perhaps it’s seen as implicitly identifying or requesting white privilege.

Is there a significance to using skin-tone emojis, and if so, what is it?
Assuming there might be a racial movement attached to the first question, how does my use of emojis, both Simpsons yellow and light-skin, interact with or contribute to that?

Note: I am an autistic white Latino-American cis-gendered man that aims to be socially just.

Autistic text stim: blekh 😝 blekh 😝 blekh 😝 blekh 😝 blekh 😝 !!

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dhork@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Use what you want to. Let others use what they want to. Don’t overthink it.

Some people are thrilled with the fact that they can make their little online avatar closer to their reality, others don’t give a damn, because they don’t want to define themselves by their virtual presence. At the end of the day, though, they’re just pixels. What you say and how you treat people is much more important than whatever +1 gets attached.

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- ZeroHora@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Based
  
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  - Blaze@reddthat.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Indeed
    
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Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨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.

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- algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Maybe you’d feel differently if your country wasn’t 90+% homogeneous with a light skin tone
  
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  - Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There are no yellow skinned people where I live
    
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- EatATaco@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - SpaceCadet@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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  - funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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- Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Why would someone want to add gendered pronouns to a language
  
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  - Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    For a same reason they want to add emojis with different color skins? Stupidity, thoughtlessnes and virtue signaling.
    
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  - TheWoozy@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    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.
    
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- dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    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.
    
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BombOmOm@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Everyone simply saw the yellow ones them as neutral toned. It’s a nice contrasting color to show the emotion; they have always done a good job representing everyone while serving their goal: to convey emotion.

The push for skin-representation in emoji’s always struck me as weird since they already represented everyone. I rarely see people using them who aren’t a bit too focused on skin color in their day-to-day life.

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- dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That, and I think they trace a direct lineage back to the original Harvey Ross Ball smiley face, which was also yellow.
  
  Me, I don’t particularly care about matching emoji skintones to myself. Rather, I’m much more annoyed that I can’t tune the 🏍️ emoji to match the color of my motorcycle. What a rip off.
  
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  - LilDumpy@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I don’t feel represented. There isn’t a badass chrome and black cruiser emjoi that makes a loud-ass rumble when you open the message, so I’m stuck with the fast and quiet Supersport 🏍.
    
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  - algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Similarly, there’s no muscle car or hot hatch, just 🏎️🚗
    
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- Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  …since they already represented everyone.
  
  Did they really? Because if that were the case we wouldn’t have different skin tones for emojis with people claiming they feel more represented by them or happy to use them because they have the same skin tone.
  
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  - IronKrill@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yes, they did. The Canadian flag represents all Canadians. The BC province flag may represent me more closely, but it doesn’t stop the Canada flag from doing the same. While some people will be happy they can represent themselves more accurately to real life, it also makes for more exclusive use cases. I think there’s an argument to be made for keeping things simple and broadly usable.
    
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- kent_eh@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Everyone simply saw the yellow ones as neutral toned.
  
  In se those ones because they’re cloaerbtobthe top of the list, therefore faster to scroll to when I’m choosing an emoji.
  
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Paradachshund@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I can give you a real answer, because I asked my wife this exact question (she’s black and uses the skin tone closest to hers, I’m white and also just use yellow ones). She said it’s so rare to get to choose a digital representation that matches her skin tone that she just thinks it’s fun to get to do it for once.

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- captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Does the skin tone modifier work on the peach emoji?
  
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  - TheBest@midwest.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    fuck legit laughed out loud at this
    
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- scutiger@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Which is the same reason they make characters of different races, genders and sexualities in video games.
  
  And people complain about these things “being forced on them” obviously without realizing that all those minorities are typically not represented in media. It’s such a minor thing that should be easy to ignore if it doesn’t apply to you, but when it does apply, feels good to know that someone was thinking about representing someone like you.
  
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- HottieAutie@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  She said it’s so rare to get to choose a digital representation that matches her skin tone that she just thinks it’s fun to get to do it for once.
  
  awww, that sounds so cute
  
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Blizzard@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There’s no significance because they are just fucking emojis.

Simpsons yellow

:D

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Theharpyeagle@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I kinda like using emoji that are similar to my skintone. Not really making a statement, but somehow it feels a little more “me.” Hard to explain why it matters.

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brbposting@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My immediate opinion upon skin tone emoji being introduced was the mildest frustration: we’d had unified emoji for all Homo sapiens!

Then after seeing someone use their own skin tone for an emoji, I realized… oh, dang. They can feel represented now, potentially in a way they did not before.

I use yellow 100%. But not bad folks have options.

One neat thing is on Slack you may be able to see a hint of your company’s vibrant diversity if folks are reacting with all colors of emoji. Admittedly it could also look a little cluttered though maybe they are grouping reactions by symbol now.

On a related note, I’ve seen two people with very light (though non-white) skin tones use significantly darker skin tone emoji. One of those times I brought it up with someone else and they’re like “yeah what’s with that?!” Self image or eyesight related perhaps…

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Nemo@midwest.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There’s at least two things going on here:

A) a very mild case of the “white as default” part of white privilege. White people see themselves as default and use the default emoji.

2] the (often accurate) perception that white people who highlight their race unnecessarily do so out of racial pride, making self-use of a “white” emoji suspect.

I’m not saying these are the only two things at play, just the ones that occurr to me on first examinstion.

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- QuarterSwede@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Ugh. What a load of horse shit. 1) People are lazy, 2) often don’t realize that they /can/ change them, 3) care to.
  
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  - OlPatchy2Eyes@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Then what is your explanation for black and brown people more likely to use the skin toned emojis, as has been mentioned so much in this thread? Are they less lazy than white people, or care more about it? If they care more about it, then why?
    
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  - Nemo@midwest.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    All true as well!
    
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deafboy@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Emoji is a failed concept anyway, because what you send is not necessary what the recipient gets. Why the app developers don’t get this, is one of the great mysteries of our century.

But when I do use them, I choose the yellow ones.

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- captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I would agree that emoji have basically failed. They confuse communication rather than facilitate it.
  
  Why are there 😀 and 😃 ? “Grinning face” and “Grinning face with big eyes.” Why? There are so many of them with subtle details like this that A. choosing between them is a bigger chore than it should be and B. they have to be rendered at such a high DPI that “bro just increase your font size” becomes the bullshit workaround everyone tells you to do. I can read the English text just fine, but on most screens emoji are indistinct blobs.
  
  Emoji are subject to all the variation that fonts are. You know how there are two lowercase “g” glyphs? There’s the one you probably do when handwriting which is an O and a J, and then there’s the loop over a loop that basically no one hand writes, it looks like the font Lemmy uses has that g. Well, emoji are like that. Like how they had to add “male dancer/female dancer” the the standard because Google rendered the “dancer” emoji as a lame disco man, Apple rendered it as a woman in a red dress.
  
  They don’t get used the way we used to use emoticons. I don’t see people say things like "I can’t go to the park today ☹️ " I see people say "Hey guys 👬 I just got back from the store 🏪 with some groceries 🥫 and took a picture 📸 of my dog 🐕 " Which to me demonstrates a failure to grow past the Sesame Street book with 6 thick rigid pages reading level.
  
  Finally, there are so many symbols that have alternate meanings that you just have to know. Like you can send white or tan or brown faces, but all eggplants are purple and all peaches are pink.
  
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  - Maalus@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    And yet eggplant and peach are obvious enough.
    
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- AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  But when I do use them, I choose the yellow ones.
  
  Scrutinizes profile pic emoji avatar
  
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  - deafboy@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That one is from The Stick of Truth character editor
    
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Hjalamanger@feddit.nu ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I just use the yellow one as I feel like they already represent everyone. I would definitely not feel any better about using a white emoji, I’d just feel like a racist trying to convince people that I’m better. I also like the yellow ones as it makes the standard to be anonymous about your skin colour. Or you could just use the outlined one for everything 🫥. Also the hole emoji is awesome 🕳️

And that was a way longer ramble then I intended 😀

And finally, good by 🖐️🖐🏻🖐🏼🖐🏽🖐🏾🖐🏿

P.S. Typing them all out the yellow one is also by far the most readeble. The white ones work very good on the black background I’m viewing this on but they probably just blend in to the background if your using a light theme. Maybe we should just type out all the variants? 🤷🤷🏻🤷🏼🤷🏽🤷🏾🤷🏿🤷‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏿‍♀️🤷‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏾‍♂️🤷🏿‍♂️

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- Noodle07@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’m a guy and default to use the female 🤷most of the time because that’s what my phone gives me on some apps
  
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  - triarius@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think that one 🤷 is meant to be gender neutral. 🤷‍♀️ & 🤷‍♂️ are less ambiguous.
    
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  - Fosheze@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I honestly didn’t know the emojis were gendered until now.
    
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  - Skullgrid@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    cishet male, I use yellow for face emojis and yellow gender neutral people for physical language standins.
    
    I want to represent the mood, not myself.
    
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blusterydayve26@midwest.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Yellow was a late neutral addition to emojis that matched with the yellow smiley face that French Asshole keeps charging people for. The original emojis were white before the yellow and darker tones were added in 2015.

Look up Katrina Parrott for the backstory.

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- Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Emojis evolved from the smileys we had in the late 90s, which were mostly yellow, but could be in various colours, like red for the angry face. Those smileys evolved from the text versions like these :) or :D
  
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- loomi@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Historically the original emojis were ascii so the symbol had the color of text on the electronic device where typed
  
  :-)
  
  ¯_(ツ)_/¯
  
  :(
  
  And so on
  
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  - lorty@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Those were called emoticons back in the day.
    
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- loomi@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Also the first gen iPhone emoji were a Japanese add on pack, iirc a keyboard addition. I had to install this add on on my iphone3g while I lived in Japan. Those emoji had average Japanese skin which white people just assumed was white. Only after those optional emoji got popular did apple make it standard, android copied, then people got worried about range of skin tone seeing as the Unicode was a global standard.
  
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  - blusterydayve26@midwest.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Thank you, I had no idea the first phone emoji characters were a third party add-on. That explains how they got there, since Apple is pretty notorious for not including people shaped things in their art.
    
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AlphaOmega@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
All my emojis have jaundice

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OlPatchy2Eyes@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
White dude here. I use the white skin emojis, but honestly I think it’s just because I see my black and brown friends use their skin tones as a rule, and I feel like using the yellow tone is a bit weird when others are using the skin tone customization.

I’m not ashamed of my skin color or anything and the phone remembers my last tone selection so I don’t really see a reason to not use it.

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jiberish@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Isn’t it weird that only the white people in The Simpsons are yellow? There’s other races that aren’t yellow. And the Simpson’s world mirrors the real word; a large number of yellow people migrated from Eastern Europe to settle in Springfield.

I guess it’s better than the Doug universe, with people being either Caucasian or blue or purple. Very weird choice of representation, Nickelodeon! 👀

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- scutiger@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Matt Groening said he made the characters in the Simpsons yellow with oddly colored hair so that people would be confused by the colors and try to adjust the knobs on their TVs to fix it only to never get it quite right.
  
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- klemptor@startrek.website ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Didn’t doug have a green dude too? And he was supposed to be white?
  
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- SpaceCadet@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Wait until you hear about Sesame street!
  
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- 0ops@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  #Simpsonsdidit
  
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Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I just use the white as fuck guy because he has a green shirt and I like green. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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- klemptor@startrek.website ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’m on Android and that shirt is definitely blue 🤷🏻‍♀️
  
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- MeDuViNoX@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  🤷🏻
  
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Anticorp@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I have a white friend that uses the dark brown emojis, which I’m kind of uncomfortable with. I think he thinks he’s showing solidarity. To me it seems like blackfishing. I haven’t put any more thought into it though, as it is a pretty minor thing in a world with much more important things to be concerned with.

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- Cryophilia@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  blackfishing
  
  Oh god please not another buzzword
  
  Stop before you wake the tabloids
  
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- LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Blackfishing?
  
  I thought we already had a term for when someone takes on someone else’s skin color something something cultural appropriation
  
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  - Anticorp@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s something different, and it’s not a new term.
    
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rockandsock@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Most white people expect peach color/white to be the universally accepted default and everyone should just not think about it because they themselves rarely have to think about representation.

White people in majority white countries rarely experience lack of representation so they don’t think its a big deal.

If medium brown was the default lots of people would be losing their minds with rage and y’all know it.

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- angrystego@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The emoji standard is bright yellow though, not peach or white.
  
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  - meekah@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s not the point of the comment, and not even what they said
    
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  - rockandsock@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Universally accepted default for drawn or animated people in general, not emojis. Simpsons yellow is what they use for white people.
    
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- MonkderDritte@feddit.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  What white. Default is yellow.
  
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  - rockandsock@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    White/peach is the universally accepted default for drawn or animated people in general, not emojis. Simpsons yellow is what they use for white people. It’s still using white person color for the default.
    
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  - EatATaco@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Simpsons yellow. Not white?
    
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Dumbkid@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
In white as fuck ✌🏿

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- ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yes, officer, this comment right here
  
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- MeDuViNoX@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  🫱🏻‍🫲🏿
  
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NeptuneOrbit@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I think the idea is that the default yellow is symbolic (with some “white people are the default” connotation) and now that you can choose the skin tone of your emojis, many people now select one that matches their skin tone.

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Etterra@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I dunno, I mean they do it with LEGO men now, but Simpsons or LEGO yellow skin only belongs on people so jaundiced that it’s a miracle they’re not dead. Same with the more feminine Lego women. What ever happened to that same stupid smile and just switch the hair piece? I mean if it makes you happy I guess, it ain’t hurting nobody. I feel neither represented nor unrepresented by a cartoon yellow face. Maybe it’s just because I’m white, I dunno. You do you I guess.

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Ballistic_86@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s about personal preference for sure. I tried to start using the “white” emojis and it just didn’t seem to matter. If I do use an emoji, I tend to default to the Simpsons yellow because it requires no extra effort. I don’t see a ton of people using the skin-tone emojis at all. I also have no issue with people using them much like pronouns in emails/profiles.

I’m also on iPhone so if I am going to extra mile I’ll just use my little sticker guy who better represents me in general.

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normalexit@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I leave mine stock yellow, but it is kind of a cool thing when you see a bunch of different color emojis liking a post. Feels nice and diverse lol.

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eestileib@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m pale and I use the pale emoji, feels more like me.

I never really used the yellow ones. 🤷🏼

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- ChexMax@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I use the one with my hair color. For things like thumbs up I stick with yellow
  
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AmidFuror@fedia.io ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Is it considered poor taste to use darker emoji colors if you are white?

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Texas_Hangover@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is my favorite emoji 🖕🏻

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psion1369@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t use emoji very much. The most I use is when I’m working and sometime asks me to take on a task in Slack. There is a thumbs up all emoji that is just the skin tone shifting to all the colors. I like it because then I don’t have to give a fuck about it.

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Mastengwe@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If they’re over the age of 16, there’s no significance to anyone that uses emojis.

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qaz@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What do you mean with autistic text stim?

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lovely_reader@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This came up in an anti-racism group I belonged to many years ago, where I learned to try to be aware of my acceptance of whiteness as “default” or somehow raceless. I also learned not to jump in and center myself in conversations about how race is (or worse, should be) perceived by those negatively affected or sensitive to it—or at least I thought I learned that, but here I am pressing send.

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Wahots@pawb.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Eh, I don’t really mind. I feel like I only use like… ❤️ and 🏳️‍🌈 though.

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