Emoticons

Emoticons, or emojis, are a very common way of communicating an idea quickly. Since the Apple and Android phone companies released these teenagers are the largest group of users. According to a study, 85 percent of teenagers with a cell phone use emojis daily. These emojis range from a smiley face all the way to different head shots of people that represent different occupations. These head shots recently became racially inclusive with the iOS 8.3 update. This was an attempt to make the users able to identify with their emojis, according to Apple.

Fifteen year old Rayough Alhumedhi has proposed the addition of several emojis to apple. The Saudi-Arabian teenager currently living in Berlin came up with the idea to propose the emojis when she and her friends were introducing themselves via emojis. All of her friends were able to, but in Alhumedhi’s words “there isn’t one that I can relate to.”

Alhumedhi wears an hijab and the current apple emojis do not offer any emojis at all that feature a head scarf. So, the Arab teenager has proposed five emojis to Apple to include in their next update. Two of the emojis feature women in different head scarves while the other two are just the head scarves themselves. However, her idea is changing.

The populus, or in this case, Alhumedi, is deciding that there needs to be a technological addition to something, thus making it cultural determination. Co-creator, Alexis Ohanian of reddit stated recently in an “Ask Me Anything” forum that he fully stands behind and supports the idea of the addition. Other members of the Arab community have also stepped forward in support of the emojis.

During the drafting process of this proposal, Alhumedi was contacted by a graphic designer. This designer sent Alhumedi a new emoji idea. No new emojis would be added, but yet any character could be selected to be wearing an hijab. This is similar to how users can change the skin tone of certain emoticons.

This is showing that this is a clear example of cultural determination. A community is deciding how a certain technology should be and is being used. As the community began to form the idea turned more into a reality. Alhumedi would never have been able to do this by herself, but with the help of the community she helped create that backed her idea her idea is becoming a reality.