Which skin color emoji should you use? The answer can be more complex than you thinkPosted in Articles, Audio, Communications/Media Studies, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science on 2022-02-21 02:53Z by Steven |
Which skin color emoji should you use? The answer can be more complex than you think
National Public Radio
2022-02-09
Asma Khalid, White House Correspondent
Patrick Jarenwattananon, Host of NPR Music’s A Blog Supreme
Catie Dull/NPR
Heath Racela identifies as three-quarters white and one-quarter Filipino. When texting, he chooses a yellow emoji instead of a skin tone option, because he feels it doesn’t represent any specific ethnicity or color.
He doesn’t want people to view his texts in a particular way. He wants to go with what he sees as the neutral option and focus on the message.
“I present as very pale, very light skinned. And if I use the white emoji, I feel like I’m betraying the part of myself that’s Filipino,” Racela, of Littleton, Mass., said. “But if I use a darker color emoji, which maybe more closely matches what I see when I look at my whole family, it’s not what the world sees, and people tend to judge that.”
In 2015, five skin tone options became available for hand gesture emojis, in addition to the default Simpsons-like yellow. Choosing one can be a simple texting shortcut for some, but for others it opens a complex conversation about race and identity…
Read the entire story here.