Our long-awaited Beard Emoji has been approved by Unicode and manufacturers should start rolling it out to their software soon.
Firstly, I feel the need to explain my absence. I had an ischemic stroke caused by a Patent foramen ovale (PFO – a hole in the heart) which allowed a blood clot to my brain. The clot was removed by thrombectomy via the artery in my leg but because my brain was starved of blood for such a long period of time, it caused slight brain damage and the left side of my body paralysed. I was told I may, or may not, be able to function properly but could take years to recover. As a determined 33 year old who’s gym-fit and very active, I managed to learn to walk again (with intensive physiotherapy 3 times a week) in 6 weeks. 6 months on… I’m back at work full-time. I have a few invisible disabilities leftover (neuro-fatigue, painful left fingers and slow at typing!) but things could have been a lot worse and I’m grateful for the support of my family, friends, colleagues and medical staff at various hospitals 🏥.
Anyhoo – while all that was going on… Unicode approved our Beard Emoji proposal and I couldn’t even celebrate 🎉! The beard emoji image which is on our website, social profiles and proposal was always just a concept as I’m a web developer, not a designer. It’s actually up to the manufacturer of your device, iOS/Android/Windows etc.. to design and release the emoji in its software update.
I don’t “vent” very often, but I have to give the middle finger emoji 🖕 to Jasper Hamill, tech and science editor at The Sun, for stating my proposal to Unicode was a ‘rather badly written letter’.
Not a bad victory for someone who’s not a writer and with brain damage in my opinion 🤕.
I’m assuming he’s just not a fan of the bearded/hipster stereotype since he claims my proposal was ‘proposed to allow members of the hipster subculture to discuss their mangy chin growths’. This is far from the truth. It was proposed so we can use a diverse selection of bearded emoji’s during the #Decembeard campaign in December to help raise support and awareness of bowel cancer. Not a bad cause, right?!
You can see what the final beard emoji may look like on other platforms over at Emojipedia, where Jeremy Burge has just been celebrating World Emoji Day 2017 in New York. Shout out to Joshua Jones for what the bearded person emoji may look like on iOS below; way better than my attempt.
