Is there any significance to people using emojis that match their skin tone?

HottieAutie@lemmy.dbzer0.com to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 147 points –

I'm asking because as a light-skinned male, I always use the standard Simpsons yellow. I don't really see other light-skinned people using an emoji that matches their skin tone, but often do see people of color use them. Maybe white people don't naturally realize a need to be explicit with emoji skin-tone or perhaps it's seen as implicitly identifying or requesting white privilege.

  • Is there a significance to using skin-tone emojis, and if so, what is it?

  • Assuming there might be a racial movement attached to the first question, how does my use of emojis, both Simpsons yellow and light-skin, interact with or contribute to that?

Note: I am an autistic white Latino-American cis-gendered man that aims to be socially just.

Autistic text stim: blekh 😝 blekh 😝 blekh 😝 blekh 😝 blekh 😝 !!

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I just use the yellow one as I feel like they already represent everyone. I would definitely not feel any better about using a white emoji, I'd just feel like a racist trying to convince people that I'm better. I also like the yellow ones as it makes the standard to be anonymous about your skin colour. Or you could just use the outlined one for everything 🫥. Also the hole emoji is awesome 🕳️

And that was a way longer ramble then I intended 😀

And finally, good by 🖐️🖐🏻🖐🏼🖐🏽🖐🏾🖐🏿

P.S. Typing them all out the yellow one is also by far the most readeble. The white ones work very good on the black background I'm viewing this on but they probably just blend in to the background if your using a light theme. Maybe we should just type out all the variants? 🤷🤷🏻🤷🏼🤷🏽🤷🏾🤷🏿🤷‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏿‍♀️🤷‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏾‍♂️🤷🏿‍♂️

I'm a guy and default to use the female 🤷most of the time because that's what my phone gives me on some apps

I think that one 🤷 is meant to be gender neutral. 🤷‍♀️ & 🤷‍♂️ are less ambiguous.

I honestly didn't know the emojis were gendered until now.

cishet male, I use yellow for face emojis and yellow gender neutral people for physical language standins.

I want to represent the mood, not myself.

Exactly! I guess I grew up with MSN so I'm used to having few emojis with specific mood rather trying to match myself