Did Someone Say Emoji? Source: Google Keyword Blog “WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THE HANDSHAKE EMOJI?” It’s a a good question and worth asking in all caps. Of our many body part emoji that have skintone, Handshake (��) appears to be left by the wayside. After inquiring with the Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) it was clear there was a desire to address it and it was possible to fix but no one had yet proposed an appropriate solution to make it happen. Emoji keyboards for iOS (left) and Android’s Gboard (right). The longer I volunteer with the UTC the more I find myself adopting projects that are by no means ‘quick solutions’. In an ecosystem that can never hit ‘undo’ (once an emoji is added they are never removed) I really try to make an effort to stop and ask what does equitable representation really look like, and when is it performative? Is this a character frequently used in communicative ways for a sustained period of time? When it lands on your keyboard, will you still want it to be there ten, twenty, forever years from now?