There have been several complaints about the lack of diverse emojis. In 2012, Miley Cyrus tweeted that she wanted more diversity in her emoji characters. Tahj Mowry also shared her want for black emojis.
Cyrus, Mowry, and anybody else who feels this way may finally get their wish. On November 3, the Unicode Consortium proposed an update for emoji diversity.
The Unicode 8.0 will add modifier characters allowing emoji users to generate a range of skin tones for the tiny faces. Version 8.0 is still in draft form, but six available skin tones are projected to be available.
It is still unclear exactly how users will be able to change the skin tone of the emoji, but an example would be to press and hold a chosen emoji character, bringing up a palette of skin tone options.
Unicode Consortium would like to have diverse emojis by mid-2015, but that will only happen if companies like Apple and Microsoft update their operating systems to support the new emoji. These companies will not be required to adopt the new characters, and because the Unicode 7.0 hasn’t been adopted by many operating system vendors yet, it could be well into 2016 before companies are able to update support for version 8.0.
The draft also discusses a way to allow custom graphics and sticker sets to be shared across different platforms without worrying about whether or not the recipient can see the same image.
Emoji-only, a messaging app, has not yet announced if they’ll support the new diverse codes. As the draft grows closer to finalization over the next several months, more information will be presented to these companies and messaging apps.