Redheads are petitioning Apple for their own emoji
Natural redheads account for less than 2% of the world’s population
Apple recently rolled out a more diverse set of emoji, so now, instead of only a default pale white complexion, emoji people will come in a range of six skin tones.
One specific coloring however, is absent: the redhead.
Redhead-focused website Ginger Parrot has launched a Change.org petition in response to this oversight, begging Apple to include a redheaded emoji in its next release.
“Despite the recent racial and sexual ‘diversification’ of Apple’s emoji to be released in the next iOS 8.3 update, there’s still an important group of people missing from the emoji family of 300 new symbols,” Ginger Parrot’s petition reads.
“If you say you’re going to diversify, why not add a few red-haired emoji in the mix? Natural redheads may be rare at less than 2% of the world’s population, but that is 138,000,000 iPhones waiting to happen.”
Unfortunately for Ginger Parrot and its supporters, it’s doubtful Apple will cave to their demands. So far, the plea has only managed to garner 2,303 supporters, a miniscule fraction of Apple’s core market. Furthermore, Apple isn’t even in charge of the emoji decision: The Unicode Consortium is responsible for setting the international standards for characters — like emoji — across different software platforms, like iOS and Android. The latest batch of emoji will hit smartphone keyboards once Unicode 8.0 is released in the middle of this year.
Redheads are also not the only group that feels marginalized. As Rhik Samadder at The Guardian notes, there is still no emoji representation for those with beards or afros.
NOW WATCH: 14 things you didn’t know your iPhone headphones could do
Read more stories on Business Insider, Malaysian edition of the world’s fastest-growing business and technology news website.
