Adding a dumpling emoji is more important than it might seem at first.

Adding a dumpling emoji is more important than it might seem at first.

Emojis have the potential to be a central part of global communication (https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/12/28/2015-moments-the-beginning-of-emoji-domination.html) but they aren’t responsive in a democratic sense and are instead governed by a small group. Emojination (http://www.dumplingemoji.org/) plans to act to influence the emoji selection process to make it inclusive of more diverse, international voices through a Kickstarter to buy a vote on the Unicode Consortium (http://unicode.org/).

The group chose to push for a dumpling because it’s a food that can be found in many cultures around the world.

“Dumplings are one of the most universal cross-cultural foods in the world. Poland has pierogi. Nepal has momos. Russia has pelmeni, Japan has gyoza. Italy has ravioli. Georgia has khinkali. Korea has mandoo. Jews have kreplach. Argentina has empanadas, and China has potstickers.”

If emojis are going to be a central pillar of how we communicate across the world, we should all have a say in how their future is shaped.

“While we are pushing for inclusion of a dumpling emoji, we are also hoping that our campaign shines a light on the little-understood, undemocratic approval process for emojis.

We are creating an organization to give a voice to the people about emojis: Emojination. Our motto is, “Emoji by the people, for the people.”

We want emoji requests (#emojirequest) to bubble up within an inclusive, representative process. This is about more than dumplings. It’s about giraffes, hedge hog, the Nazar. And dozens of other images that people want recognized as emojis.”