Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

How this ‘Frowning Pile of Poo’ emoji started a messy conflict

Mark Austin
By

poo emoji
nicode Consortium
The Unicode Consortium is a serious bunch of people with a serious job. It’s a non-profit organization dedicated to standardizing software text worldwide — heavy stuff! As part of that noble goal, the consortium has the weighty task of approving the addition of new emojis, the silly little single-character cartoons we append to our texts. And a feud has broken out between the serious typographers and the more frivolous bloc who oversee emojis — all over a pile of poo.

Following a submission for the June 2018 class — a proposed emoji titled “Frowning Pile of Poo” — the consortium erupted into a fierce debate over whether such a poo emoji was really necessary and, more broadly, whether the emoji creation process had become too frivolous and commercialized.

Recommended Videos

As Buzzfeed explains, Michael Everson and Andrew West are two typographers who vociferously objected to the latest submission, saying it cheapened the consortium’s image and was damaging to the Unicode academic reputation.

Related

“The idea that our 5 committees would sanction further cute graphic characters based on this should embarrass absolutely everyone who votes yes on such an excrescence,” they wrote. “Will we have a CRYING PILE OF POO next? PILE OF POO WITH TONGUE STICKING OUT? PILE OF POO WITH QUESTION MARKS FOR EYES? PILE OF POO WITH KARAOKE MIC?”

The answer to all those questions is surely a resounding “Yes!” but let’s move on. An argument could be made that frowning poo is a necessary addition for those times when you want to covey your feelings with poo, only with a more dour and unhappy subtext. Emojis can be misinterpreted, after all. As the proponents argue in their 12-page proposal, it would “fill in the missing gap in emotions and attitudes that can’t be expressed with the smiling poo emoji alone.”

​The typographers weren’t buying it. “As an ordinary user, I don’t want this kind of crap on my phone,” Everson wrote.

​The obvious culprit is Apple. “It is a pity that Apple followed Softbank rather than KDDI in its reference glyph, since a coil of dog dirt with stink lines and flies is surely the only proper semantic,” the rebuttal memo declared.

There is also fear that the renegade emoji group is running roughshod over normal processes, implementing emojis in less than a year’s time with very little scrutiny or oversight. “Why the rush?” asked West.

In the meantime, Apple has just released its latest round of emojis — more than 70 of them if you update your device to iOS 11.1. As always, anyone you send the new emojis to will need the update as well, or they won’t be able to see them.

Unfortunately, this controversy won’t be flushed away any time soon.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Mark Austin
Mark Austin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Mark’s first encounter with high-tech was a TRS-80. He spent 20 years working for Nintendo and Xbox as a writer and…
This Lenovo ThinkPad is usually priced at $2,688 — today it’s $589
The Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 3 laptop on a white background.

If you're looking at laptop deals for an offer that will get you a high-performance device for an affordable price, you should check out the Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 3, which will be yours for $589. Lenovo says it's a $2,099 discount, but we're not sure about the laptop's original price of $2,688. Nevertheless, it's a powerful laptop for that cost, which should catch the attention of a lot of shoppers. If you're interested, you still have time to take advantage of this bargain, but you should hurry because we're not sure when it will end or when stocks will run out.

Why you should buy the Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 3
Lenovo inherited the ThinkPad line from IBM, according to our explainer on the different Lenovo brands, which explains the iconic look, sturdy design, and focus on productivity of the Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 3. The laptop will quickly prove that it's a reliable work-from-anywhere partner with its AMD Ryzen 5 Pro 5675U processor and integrated AMD Radeon Graphics, which are combined with 16GB of RAM that's on the level of top-tier machines, according to our guide on how much RAM do you need.

Read more
One of Alienware’s best pre-built gaming PCs has a $400 discount
Alienware Aurora R15 placed at an angle on a table.

Not all gaming PC deals are worth buying, but here's an offer that gamers looking for a new machine shouldn't ignore -- Dell's $400 discount on the Alienware Aurora R15, which brings its price down from $1,600 to $1,200. It's still not what you'd call affordable, but it's a steal price for one of the brand's best pre-built gaming PCs. You're going to have to hurry though, because there's a chance that the bargain will already be gone if you check again tomorrow. Proceed with the transaction right now if you don't want to miss out.

Why you should buy the Alienware Aurora R15 gaming PC
The Alienware Aurora R16 has taken the spot of the best Alienware gaming PC in our roundup of the best gaming PCs, but its predecessor, the Alienware Aurora R15, is still a pretty awesome gaming PC by today's standards. Its futuristic design isn't just a gimmick, as the gaming desktop can play the best PC games of today and the upcoming PC games of tomorrow with its 13th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card, and 16GB of RAM. The Alienware Aurora R15's internal components are easy to upgrade due to the Alienware Aurora R15's Legend 2.0 design, but you won't have to swap components any time soon.

Read more
This Alienware gaming laptop with RTX 4070 is over $500 off today
Alienware m18 laptop sitting on a table.

While there are gaming laptop deals on affordable devices, hardcore gamers may be looking at the other direction -- the most powerful devices that you can get with a discount. This one fits the bill -- the Alienware m18 gaming laptop for $1,950, following Dell's $550 discount on its original price of $2,500. We're not sure how much time is remaining on this offer, so you're going to have to be quick with your purchase if you want to make sure that you're able to grab this bargain.

Why you should buy the Alienware m18 gaming laptop
The specifications of the Alienware m18 allow it to challenge the performance of the best gaming laptops -- the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card, and 32GB of RAM. You won't run into any issues if you choose to play the best PC games at their highest settings, and you won't have to worry that your gaming laptop won't be enough for any upcoming PC games. All that power will be on full display on the Alienware m18's large 18-inch screen with Full HD+ resolution and a 480Hz refresh rate.

Read more