School's Health Clinic Misses The Mark Big Time With Its Use Of Emojis On A Sign About Coughing
You know how some articles require a lot of nuanced backstory and tell a deeply heartwarming tale?
Yeah... this ain't that.
This is a nice simple article about why folks should 100% not be allowed to use any of that newfangled youth-speak without a translator. Because when they do, they end up accidentally encouraging students to perform fellatio.
Recently, an image that shows exactly that scenario has been making the rounds across the internet. According to one Reddit user, it's a sign posted at the health center of their sister's school.
Yup.
That happened.
Take a long look at that "coughing" emoji. Take a long, deep, hard look.
Do you see it?
Reddit certainly did, and the jokes ... well ... they write themselves.
"A lot of time people are very prone to coughing fits after eating eggplants, you should suggest that they put an eggplant emoji right before it, for awareness." - Cetun
"This emoji would have made The Emoji Movie a whole lot more interesting." - FooFooPottyMouf
"Netflix and coughing is now a thing?!" - SurvivorDress
"This would totally change my tinder game if I had an emoji like this" - TToiv
Twitter noticed, too.
@420iloveweed Omg 🤣😂🤣 Now I want that emoji 😏😂— ɿɘᎸiᴎᴎɘႱ 🇨🇦 (@ɿɘᎸiᴎᴎɘႱ 🇨🇦) 1580443764.0
That emoji is not coughing 🤣 #icant #coronavirus #CoronavirusOutbreak #coronaviruses #emoji #sick #cough 😷 https://t.co/1oPM4nxeeP— 𝕯𝖗𝖆𝖈𝖚𝖑𝖆 ❂ (@𝕯𝖗𝖆𝖈𝖚𝖑𝖆 ❂) 1580432085.0
@9GAG https://t.co/o6lFOskBF0— aman damai raa (@aman damai raa) 1580458416.0
As embarrassing as going viral for this must be for the staff, they shouldn't feel too bad. The students will absolutely remember the sign and the message, after all.
They should really take heart in the knowledge that they're not the only completely oblivious adults out there trying to be "hip" and failing like.
Because this next story had us cackling.
We'll let you use Urban Dictionary to figure out what thunderclap is in current slang and why it's not at all appropriate to call an award for children.
"My husband is a high school teacher, and at his school the mascot is Thor/thunder. Administration started giving awards to praise student behavior, and asked teachers to nominate kids for 'Thunderclap Awards'. "- Cyndurblox
So what have we learned?
If you're old enough to drink, you're old enough to be out of the youth-speak loop; and maybe you should run these things by actual kids before you end up as a cautionary internet tale.
Google is releasing 53 new gender-fluid emoji as part of a beta release for their Pixel smartphones this week.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Fast Company, Android emoji director Jennifer Daniel said the move is part of an effort to make the symbols more inclusive:
"We're not calling this the non-binary character, the third gender, or an asexual emoji — and not gender neutral. Gender neutral is what you call pants. But you can create something that feels more inclusive."
Google releases 53 gender fluid emoji Sujet super intéressant (et je les trouve assez réussis)… https://t.co/g1fDgIQ1ws— Marc Pédeau (@Marc Pédeau) 1557334860
Daniel sits on the Unicode consortium, the organization that sets core emoji standards like gender that designers at tech companies use to create their own emoji.
Last year, she noted that there were 64 emoji that were never meant to signify gender per Unicode's standards.
And that's where things got complicated, as Fast Company points out:
"Yet Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and, yes, Google, have often assigned genders with their designs for these emoji. It's why every construction worker across major operating systems is, by default, is a man. Unicode's standards dictated a construction 'person,' but tech companies decided to design them as construction men (and add women as a secondary option)."
That practice reinforces stereotypes, so Google decided to address the problem. Some emojis, like the merperson emoji, now have genderless mid-length hair.
The vampire emoji now sports an androgynous chain instead of a bowtie, while its female iteration dons a choker necklace.
Google is adding 53 gender-fluid emoji to Android Q https://t.co/V5fb7u7ZH4— Shahid Ansari (@Shahid Ansari) 1557396643
Daniel admits that there is "no singular way of getting it right" but says the challenge was not one that could be avoided:
"Gender is complicated. It is an impossible task to communicate gender in a single image. It's a construct. It lives dynamically on a spectrum. I personally don't believe there is one visual design solution at all, but I do believe to avoid it is the wrong approach here."
"We can't avoid race, gender, any other number of things in culture and class. You have to stare it in the face in order to understand it. That's what we're trying to do–to [find] the signifiers that make something feel either male or female, or both male and female."
The project has already received praise.
In which @jenniferdaniel demonstrates why she is the very best kind of human! Gender neutral emoji on principle.. i… https://t.co/Tw5sJMuZ4i— Tea Uglow 🏳️⚧️ (@Tea Uglow 🏳️⚧️) 1557369958
Kudos to @jenniferdaniel of Google for driving release of gender neutral emoji to reflect genderless words like… https://t.co/HHeq5NJisc— Emojination (@Emojination) 1557278233
I support this 100% but these emoji are literally all just me. https://t.co/Ch7nRtwdkP— Alex (@Alex) 1557421880
Ths is incredibly cool https://t.co/BSArRSiX5x— Lightning (@Lightning) 1557350552
The new emoji will roll out to all Android Q phones planned for later in 2019.
Because Google collaborates with Apple and other tech companies when developing emojis, other companies will likely release their own versions of these emojis in the future.