Gender-neutral figures, mythical creature among new emoji ideas

Smartphone users may soon see new gender-neutral figures, a citrus fruit and a mythical creature in their emoji list.

Unicode, the non-profit behind Emoji creations, drafted “four new gender-neutral family emojis intended to be represented via silhouettes” possibly for its 15.1 update, reports Emojipedia, a popular blog that keeps up with the modern-day hieroglyphics.

A Phoenix bird, lime, mushroom, broken chain, a head shaking horizontally, and one shaking vertically are also expected to come in the new series, up for approval by Unicode in September.

These possibilities have been mocked up by Emojipedia Head of Emoji Design Joshua Jones to give typers a taste of what could appear on their keyboards.

“Based on recent years, the final version is likely to mirror this draft list,” the blog noted.

The new batch will also have a major focus on motion-directed figures — “all versions of pre-existing people emojis.”

“The Emoji 15.1 candidate list also contains directional versions of six different types of person emojis (for a total of 108 new emojis when you include skin tone modifier and gender variants),” according to Emojipedia.

“Additionally, Apple and other vendors may opt for unique designs for each of the new direction-specifying people emojis, instead of simply inverting their existing designs.”

Emojis have recently caused a stir online, as some have sparked confusion, while others have had their meanings hotly debated.

Gen Z has notoriously gone to war in an effort to cancel the (apparently “boomer”-relegated) thumbs up emoji as well.