The Emoji Squad: The Mysterious Group Behind The Little Icons We Love 🤝

Emojis. Love them or hate them, they’re now an essential part of our text-based vocabulary.

But where do they come from, how do they work, and did you know there's a secretive board of 16 people who control them all?

Well, Journalist and Engineer Petra Stock did as a lover of communication.

Listen here:

“Have you ever wondered, why there isn’t an emoji for …. let’s say a drone, or a wind turbine, or skipping, an echidna, or toast?” Petra said on Huh? Science Explained.

“It’s because our emoji options are strictly controlled by a secretive decision-making body called the Unicode Consortium, established in 1991.”

While she loves writing about new technologies (robots, digital platforms), Petra is nostalgic for the retro kind (letters, cassette tapes). 

Petra joins Huh? Science Explained to let us in on the mysterious emoji squad and the power it has in determining the little pictures we use to communicate.

Put your thinking caps on, folks. Huh? Science Explained is here, the twice weekly podcast brought to you by LiSTNR and Cosmos. Hosted by Cosmos’ very own science journos, this is the podcast that will answer all of life’s questions – in just 10 minutes. Hear it on the LiSTNR app now.