I don't really see any reason to not use the default yellow, frankly
this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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Dito. It also feels more inclusive since noone is yellow (unless you have liver failure)
The simpsons
Juan dice
¿Qué dice Juan?
Ouch, my liver
I agree, as a white person, that yellow seems more neutral. But, then people who are even slightly not white are always eager to switch. So yellow is just away for white people not to choose and risk coming across as overly invested in advertising their skin color. I also notice some people have a skewed idea of how brown they actually are and will pick a shade or two darker than their real skin tone.
Adding skin colour was dumb to begin with. Bright yellow was just perfect for everyone you know.
ish, but somehow it ends up that yellow is white people.
look at the Simpsons for example, the default is yellow, but other skin colours are their normal colours, like black/asian.
same happened with legos.
it's weird because any colour you choose for a "default" will end up mapped to the "cultural" default, rather than for everyone.
might be because I'm racist. but for me all the xkcd figures are white, even though they are not racialised.
any colour you choose for a “default” will end up mapped to the “cultural” default
Now I'm wondering if this has ever been tested on black Africans, in homogeneously black communities, do (or did) they perceive the yellow emoji as foreign/alien in any way?
Probably difficult or impossible to test, admittedly...
but for me all the xkcd figures are white, even though they are not racialised.
If xkcd introduced character whose head-circle was filled with black, that character would definitely be viewed as black. But - if all the characters had black heads, would we default back to all of them being white?
i think we can look at ancient art, which sucks for me as I was in the Detroit institute of art and they have a huge African art exhibition but got too exhausted just before getting there and missed it.
exploding that exhibition might help shed light. because if old art portrays them with "non black" colours it would shed light into this question
Just use the yellow ones. No need to add useless skin colour to emojis.
We are all one in the Simpsons
I use them because I want to push back against the assumption that white is the default. If not-white people pick a skin tone and white people stay yellow, then yellow gets read as white, not color-neutral.
And yes, it felt so awkward to choose the white emoji at first.
That's the same reason I stick with yellow. I'm not comfortable sharing my race in the wild, yellow is the unifier.
Fair! Yellow as anonymizer makes sense. I tend to use emojis in forms of communication where people already know me, like on discord and professional channels.
Emojis started off yellow and never really implied any skin colour.
Just like Lego
I mean look at this cursed Michael Strahan Minifig:
₍₍⚞(˶˃ ꒳ ˂˶)⚟⁾⁾ superiority tho
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Kaomoji my beloved (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
മ◡മ of course its the best
My mom switched to them recently. It felt vaguely racist, I don't know
Did you feel that way when your non white friends did it though?
I see some whites do it but it started after the non whites started picking the proper shade.
All colored emojis feel racist to me. Even the white ones.
Adding race to something that didn't have it before is by definition racist. Because all your doing is creating racial divides where there was none before.
It also reinforces the original color as the cultural normal. Instead of it just being generic.
So yellow went from being just a thing to bring white. Cause now black or tan are "other" then default.
I use them after a POC friend said they thought it was cool when white folks use them and i've never heard anyone complain about it before this thread. It never occurred to me before that but i have many kinds of privilege so i'll make any simple accommodation like that I can.
No, and that's the part that makes it feel weird
Personally, I did a little bit, but then I looked up all the emojis available and my eyes glazed over and went insane for a moment. Now I hate emojis even more.
I don't need people knowing I'm white, I have a reputation to uphold
I use them. I'm not a character from The Simpsons.
I use them, because that's my color. It's just a touch of personalisation. I won't paint myself yellow in my profile pictures either.
Normally I'd ask why this is such a big deal, but I'm afraid I know. And no, I'm not fascist, not racist, and not taking any pride in skin color in any way (if anything, I'd be rather ashamed because of those white people who think they're superior in any way). In an ideal world everyone should be able to show themselves as who they are, and I'm holding myself to that, regardless of how sick the world is.
You should be able to use any color, whether it's your true identity or you pick it for privacy reasons. If someone harasses you just because of skin color, that piece of shit garbage motherfucker must be banned from the internet, possibly from public spaces too.
Damn this triggered me so bad.
Hey, it was descriptive, not prescriptive (nobody uses them Vs nobody should use them). There was no attack (and I've never met anyone who would say such a thing), don't worry! 😊
because it doesn't matter what colour they are.
it's funny i only know one person that uses these and he is basically a fascist
also i know this single person who is white but uses the black thumbsup for some reason
I don't use any, black or white. I ain't racist and have words.
I use them and the yellow ones interchangeably. They happen to be the same color as my skin which is why I sometimes use them. But I’m not attached enough to go looking for them when the generic yellow is easier.
I don’t use them with strangers though. Mainly because I don’t feel like randomly announcing my skin color to people I have never met and will never meet when it adds nothing at all to the conversation.
I don't use any of the emoji that could have a skin tone. I will occasionally use emoji, but don't find that the faces or hands are useful.
A lot of the dark emojis are just from white people bragging about their tans.