‘Woman with a hijab emoji represents me’
Saudi teen shares her journey to hijab emoji
UArab Times Staff
namused, confounded, disappointed, or weary – all of this and much more is communicated through symbols today. Emojis have become a ubiquitous form of visual communication that are increasingly influencing our online interactions.
Created in the late 1990s by NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese communications firm, Emojis are regulated by the Unicode Consortium, a non-profit corporation that standardizes software and the representation of text internationally. All modern operating systems support emoji characters.
It is easy to see how the emoji, that literally translates to “picture characters” and originally associated with cellular telephone usage in Japan, was readily adopted worldwide. They supplement modern communication by adding colour and nuance, they fill in the gaps in text from the lack of gestures, facial expressions, and tone of voice, and bring more clarity to our conversations.
As of June 2017, there are 2,666 emojis in the Unicode Standard. On Facebook alone, 60 million emojis are used per day excluding the 5 billion used on Facebook Messenger. While it is hard to ascertain the actual daily usage across all social media and messaging, these stats provide a glimpse of its ubiquity.
Its widespread use has raised up issues of representation and diversity in our digital language as we all try to pick an image out of a suite of little icons to symbolize us. Rayouf Alhumedhi, a Saudi teen who lives in Berlin, is responsible for the newly approved woman with a hijab emoji. In this interview with the Arab Times, she shares her journey.
Arab Times: Can you begin by telling us a little about yourself?
Rayouf Alhumedhi: My name is Rayouf Alhumedhi and I’m a 16-yearold from Saudi Arabia, although, I’ve only lived there for the 6 years of my life. My family moved to Vienna because of my father’s job there and lived there for five years before moving to Berlin, Germany. We stayed in Berlin for another 5 years and then moved back to Vienna! After spending 10 years of my life in these countries, I am proud I am fluent in German. I have attended international schools all my life, and the exposure to different cultures and traditions have, even if in the most minuscule way, influenced my desire for an emoji that represents me. My other interests are quite conventional, I really enjoy reading English Literature.
AT: How important do you think the emoji is today to language and in the way we communicate with each other?
RH: Emojis act as a light-hearted way to convey what you’re saying. For some miraculous reason the use of these yellow faced circles make all the difference in messaging. Emojis are important in text, when more often than not emotions are lost through the inability to vary tone, voice and use sarcasm. They have the power to change the reading of an otherwise harsh and un-emotive text to a fun and easy-going one. Their use makes it clear to the recipient the connotation and tone of the text with limited confusion.
No matter how much people would like to trivialize and underplay the significance of emojis today, we can’t disregard their influence on consumers and many businesses are paying attention to this fact. An example of this is Domino’s creative initiative to increase sales by making it very easy for their costumers to order a pizza by simply texting a pizza emoji to them.
AT: When did you come up with the idea for the woman wearing a hijab emoji?
RH: My desire for a hijab emoji has been at the back of my mind for a long time because I thought it was just another thing I wanted but couldn’t really act on. However, my perplexity as to why there wasn’t such an emoji to represent the millions of women was really amplified when I created a WhatsApp group with my friends and decided to name the group with emojis of ourselves. I thought it was most appropriate for me to be represented as a girl in a headscarf because it is a big part of my identity. I managed to do this by having the normal emoji of a girl, intertwined arrows, and the turban emoji, to represent me. That’s when the idea for such an emoji really sparked!
AT: How did you learn about the process of submission? Can anyone submit a proposal?
RH: I learnt the process for submitting an emoji idea through Mashable’s snapchat story in which they briefly explained how one can submit an emoji. With a sensible proposal that outlines the needed research, anyone can submit an emoji idea, however, that’s not a guarantee it will be approved.
AT: For our readers, who may be unaware, can you tell us what the Unicode Consortium is?
RH: In most simple terms, Unicode Consortium is an organization that deals with all technicalities of characters on any keyboard. It creates a standard for all representations of text, so we can use them with ease.
AT: Can you walk us through the different rounds of getting the emoji approved? In your experience, what are the conditions that an emoji must meet for it to be accepted?
RH: For any emoji, the conditions and guidelines are the same. These guidelines include whether the proposed emoji will be transient, be used frequently or whether the emoji is already represented by something similar. These are a small examples of the things expected by the Unicode Technical Committee.
As evidence of the expected frequency of the hijab emoji, I included figures of the number of times the #hijab hashtag had been used on Instagram in comparison to #turban, as it already exists. The search for the hijab hashtag proved to be much more substantial in comparison to turban, which helped further my argument.
Although, not mentioned, an abstract is strongly encouraged, in which you discuss your emoji and its altruistic purposes. In my case, I put much significance on the history of the headscarf and its presence in other religions.
AT: What about the actual design of the emoji? How did you put that together?
RH: The initial designs were designed by Aphee Messer and used as glyphs so the vendors within the UTC (Google, Apple,Twitter, etc) can have an idea of what it would likely look like. The actual color of the headscarf, small features are up to the vendors. However, throughout the process I ensured that the emoji would be available across all skin tones.
AT: Can you tell us about your visit to IBM headquarters? What were your feelings as you went in to make the case for your idea?
RH: In all honesty, I was very unaware of what to expect. I just knew that I was there to convince and put a face on the proposal, which I think goes a presentation, in essence was a visual representation of my proposal with the advantages of having such an emoji, emphasized.
AT: How did you hear about the success of your idea? Can you describe to us what you felt at the time?
RH: 5 days after presenting to the UTC, Jennifer Lee, who was a mentor to me throughout the proposal process, sent me an email of its approval. I was honestly over the moon, it was so nice to realize that I will be the reason millions of women will feel represented. It was great to see the months of working on this amount to something significant. Nonetheless, whether it would’ve been approved of or not, I would’ve been satisfied knowing that I had at least made the attempt.
AT: When will the emoji become available on different platforms?
RH: I’m only certain of when the emoji will be on Apple which is early to mid-November. I suspect other platforms will be releasing it in close proximity to that date.
AT: Do you feel that the emoji library is sufficiently diverse? How can we improve representations?
RH: In reality, it’ll never be sufficiently diverse because there will always be a group of people who are not justly represented. However, if a certain group of people feel unrepresented they should certainly go ahead and submit a proposal.
AT: Are you looking to submit more proposals in the future?
RH: For now, I don’t have nothing in mind. Regardless, if I have an idea, perhaps something also related to representation, I’ll definitely pursue it.
AT: How did you deal with the negative criticisms you encountered about the hijab online?
RH: Before this project garnered any media attention, I was very well aware of the backlash that will likely take place. We all know anything related to Islam is marred by controversy and likely to face criticism.
My first encounter to this criticism was on my Reddit AMA on the sub-reddit “TwoxChromosomes,” where some people saw this emoji as a symbol of oppression. To those commenting, I couldn’t tell them whether they were right or wrong because that’s what an opinion is. So, I replied back with my opinion which doesn’t overlook the fact that there are women being oppressed for wearing but also does not neglect the fact that many women, just like me, proudly wear the hijab.
It is important to mention that the support for this emoji definitely outweighed its criticism.
AT: How do you address the issue that the emoji does not represent all Muslim women, i.e. those who don’t wear hijab?
RH: This emoji intends to represent those that do wear the hijab, and it also doesn’t aim for a divide between those that do and don’t to be created. Muslim women that don’t wear the headscarf have the regular emoji to represent them, where clearly those that do wear it don’t. In my eyes, this emoji, is somewhat of a nod of appreciation and recognition to the prevalent hijab community on social media.
AT: What advice would you give to young Arab girls today?
RH: There is no question that Arab girls do face some obstacles to their futures that aren’t present in other countries. And to that I encourage these girls to look past these obstacles and find a way past it, whether that may be as simple as writing a letter to the principal regarding an issue, or fighting for the overall rights for women.
AT: What is your hope for the future?
RH: My hope is that the preconceived notion that all Muslim women are oppressed will no longer prevail, as it stigmatizes our presence and social interactions with others. I also hope that the emoji can play a role in the shift in that line of thinking because when hijabi women are being acknowledged and recognized on social media — a crucial aspect of our daily lives — the same can be done in real life.