Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs

The block contains 637 emoji[4][5] and has 312 standardized variants defined to specify emoji-style (U+FE0F VS16) or text presentation (U+FE0E VS15) for 156 base characters. [6]

The Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs contains a set of "Emoji modifiers" which are modifier characters intended to represent skin colour based on the Fitzpatrick scale (but conflating the two lightest skin types into one category):[5][7]

U+1F3FB 🏻 EMOJI MODIFIER FITZPATRICK TYPE-1-2

U+1F3FC 🏼 EMOJI MODIFIER FITZPATRICK TYPE-3

U+1F3FD 🏽 EMOJI MODIFIER FITZPATRICK TYPE-4

U+1F3FE 🏾 EMOJI MODIFIER FITZPATRICK TYPE-5

U+1F3FF 🏿 EMOJI MODIFIER FITZPATRICK TYPE-6

These emoji modifiers can be used on emojis that represent people or body parts including the 54 human emojis in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictograph block.[5]

In August 2014, Peter Edberg of Apple Inc. and Mark Davis of Google proposed implementing these "emoji modifiers" to provide better representation of "human diversity" in emoji characters.[8] [9] and, in June 2015, the proposal was adopted in Unicode version 8.0.[10] This was the result of lobbying by Katrina Parrott, whose daughter came up with the idea after being unable to send emojis that looked like her.[11]

To modify an emoji representing a human or body part, the emoji modifier must be placed immediately after that emoji. [12] When the emoji modifier is applied to an emoji, the emoji-style variant selectior (U+FE0F) should be omitted because the emoji modifier automatically implies emoji-style presentation.[12]

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block: