Interracial couples are finally getting some emoji representation
Interracial couples are finally getting emoji representation, and the company that's doing it first might come as a surprise.
Microsoft quietly added support for interracial emoji couples in its most recent preview build for the upcoming Windows Creator update. The change, first noticed by Emojipedia, makes Windows the first major platform to support the characters.
Support for the new characters was quietly added in the latest preview build for the upcoming Windows 10 Creators update. We say quietly because the characters aren't yet officially part of Windows' emoji keyboard, but they are supported when you manually copy and paste them.
With the update, users are able to change the skin tone for each person in the emoji couple, opening up a total of 144 variations.
As Emojipedia editor Jeremy Burge notes, this is still an early build of the update so it's not clear whether Microsoft will make the changes official when its Windows 10 Creators update becomes available later this year. Moreover, it will likely be some time before we see similar support from other platforms.
"As these have not been documented within the Unicode Standard, it's unlikely they will see support from other vendors at this stage." Burge writes.
Still, the update should be an encouraging sign for advocates of more diverse emoji. In the meantime, there are third-party apps for iOS and Android that already allow you to share more diverse emoji couples.
Karissa was Mashable's Senior Tech Reporter, and is based in San Francisco. She covers social media platforms, Silicon Valley, and the many ways technology is changing our lives. Her work has also appeared in Wired, Macworld, Popular Mechanics, and The Wirecutter. In her free time, she enjoys snowboarding and watching too many cat videos on Instagram. Follow her on Twitter @karissabe.
