Emoji are a fun way to express yourself when talking through text on your smartphone. Over the years, the Unicode Consortium, the organization behind Emojis, has steadily updated the list of emoji to ensure it remains inclusive and relevant to the times. For the first time, Emoji 14.0, which is slated to appear next year, will feature 25 skin tone combinations for handshakes.
At the moment, there exists a one-tone handshake that is supported on most current devices. The new handshake emoji will split up the right hand and the left hand, and have the option of 5 skin tones each, for a total of 25 combinations.
The proposal was submitted by Jennifer Daniel, who is the creative director for emoji at Google, back in November 2019, and finally got approved for Emoji 14.0. It is expected to rollout to device in 2021.
Commenting on the addition of these 25 new Emoji, Jennifer Daniel said:
Every time we add a new emoji, there’s a risk it could exclude people without our consciously knowing it. The best we can do is ensure emoji continue to be as broad, flexible and fluid as possible. Just like language. Just like you. 🦋