Emoji?

Yes, emoji. Those little characters that you can use instead of words in your messages. You know, smiley faces crying tears of joy, dancing women, the one that looks like the woman is holding an invisible tray of drinks.. You get the idea.

Where do we use them?

Text messages, Facebook, Twitter… pretty much everywhere. The most common emojis in use on Twitter in Ireland at the moment are the thumbs up sign, the monkey covering its eyes, and the ok symbol.

So why are we talking about them?

Well, it's World Emoji Day on Sunday. And things are about to change again. A while ago, Google proposed a few new additions to the lineup, to make them more representative of the people who use them.

Was it a problem?

Depends on which side of the fence you are. There was a definite lack of diversity in the current line up. For example, the male emojis were detectives and policemen; women, on the other hand, can be princesses or brides. Slightly sexist, wouldn’t you agree?

When you think that research estimates 78 per cent of women use emojis frequently, compared with only 60 per cent of men, it seems even more ridiculous.

Hmm. I see what you mean. So what is being added?

There’s 11 new professional emoji that will be available for both men and women, including teacher, welder, farmer, chef and rockstar. That’ll mean about 100 new emojis when you take into account the different skin tones.

There are 33 existing emoji that are being remade with both male and female versions. Men will now be able to use the hair cut emoji, for example, and there are female runners, weightlifters, cyclists and swimmers being added.

When will we get them?

They’ve been approved by the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee, so you could see them by the end of the year.

*Crying tears of joy*

Indeed.