Everyone loves the emoji. What better way to express yourself than the cute little faces and symbols one can put in emails and social media posts? But there is new emoji coming out that isn’t so cute.
The undesirable emoji I refer to is the middle finger emoji. It’s officially called Unicode 7. It took 15 months for it to be approved. It will be available on iOS 9.1. At the Apple conference last Wednesday, a lot of new emoji symbols were introduced, such as the hot dog, taco, burrito, champagne bottle, unicorn, even a Jewish synagogue. But the one that stands out to me is this very direct middle finger that needs no translation. To be fair, the signal has always been in the computer world somehow. Emoji One, What’s App, and Windows 10 has the finger cartoon. But Apple’s 9.1 version has the best version (if you want to call it that) of it. Let’s say you wanted to upset someone. You had these four finger versions to choose from. You’d want to choose the iOS 9.1 version. Don’t go rushing to your iPhone device to get this emoji yet. It won’t be available until next year. I’m sure there are those, including some of you reading this, that can’t hold out that long.
From an economic standpoint, this emoji is going to be a huge seller. I just feel it. I am totally for free speech and First Amendment rights! I hate censorship. So I don’t think this emoji should be taken down by any means. But I?have to throw my moral card down. Isn’t there enough hatred and anger in the world today? Does Apple really want to add anymore? If you’re dissatisfied with something, or someone, isn’t there another, more dignified emoji you can send? Yes, the middle finger emoji is legal and constitutional. But is it responsible and is it right?