210 skin tone variants: Emoji world to get a politically correct update in 2021

The emoji world is all set to welcome new ‘politically correct’ members in 2021, the Unicode Consortium, which selects new character variants each year revealed on Saturday. 

The update comes with seven brand new images: a heart on fire, a heart with bandages, a woman with a beard, a gender-neutral person with a beard, a face letting out an exasperated sigh, a face hidden in the clouds and a dizzy-looking face with spiral eyes.

It also includes 210 new skin tone grouping variants for the “couple with heart” and “couple kissing” emoji. The Emoji 13.1 update will be available from 2021. 

As of now, multi-person Emoji is only available in yellow. However, from next year, users will be able to choose from varieties that can be used to represent interracial relationships or pairs of people with varying skin tones.

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The Unicode Consortium tweeted generic images depicting the upcoming Emoji. However, the images are just samples and vendors for mobile platforms create their own stylized versions. The non-profit also thanked its volunteers who helped in the minor release. 

“Thank you everyone, you know who you are,” they tweeted.