I know several wonderful people involved with the process of creating new emoji and occasionally see them celebrating an addition. I understand the motivation for representing more people, such as the recent addition of interskintone couples. And yet, each time I cringe a bit – not about the specifics, but about emoji generally. Written languages based on alphabets are one of the great human accomplishments. They mark an extraordinary progress over the hieroglyphs which preceded them. Alphabe...

I know several wonderful people involved with the process of creating new emoji and occasionally see them celebrating an addition. I understand the motivation for representing more people, such as the recent addition of interskintone couples. And yet, each time I cringe a bit – not about the specifics, but about emoji generally. Written languages based on alphabets are one of the great human accomplishments. They mark an extraordinary progress over the hieroglyphs which preceded them. Alphabe...