What’s trending: Tinder’s push for interracial emojis

April 6, 2018
2 min read

Tinder has launched a campaign urging the Unicode Consortium, the entity that approves new emojis, to create emojis that reflect people in interracial relationships.

The dating app has also created a change.org petition and is inviting consumers to join the campaign. Tinder wants emojis to better represent what love looks like in the world. Currently, there are emojis for people of colour and same-sex couples, but there aren’t emojis for interracial couples.

Accurately representing society

Consumers across all age groups and racial backgrounds are on social media and use emojis to express themselves. Some people believe that emoji is the universal language that is understood across the world.

For this reason, many brands are looking to accurately represent society via emoji and visual digital media. In honour of Black History Month, GIPHY created a new series of GIFs inspired by #BlackGirlMagic activism. Meanwhile in 2016, Always launched a “Like a Girl” campaign – which pointed out how stereotypical images of women are used in the previous standard Unicode emoji set.

Consumers are embracing diversity and looking for more inclusive products and services that celebrate and empower individuals from all backgrounds. They are supportive of programmes and campaigns that focus on diversity-based initiatives aimed to promote the positive benefits of diversity to society. Brands that show their support for all people will likely garner attention and receive praise and recognition in return.

Iliana Alvarenga
Iliana Alvarenga

Iliana Alvarenga is the Trends Analyst for North America at Mintel. She identifies and examines relevant and emerging consumer trends across all categories.

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