this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2024
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I rushed to just grab that codeblock from Wikipedia. But the selection of which characters are considered emoji is not arbitrary. The Unicode Consortium (their Unicode Emoji Standard and Research Working Group to be exact) publishes those list and guidelines on how they should be rendered. I believe the most recent version of the standard is Emoji 15.1.
Edit: I realized I'm going off track here by just reacting to comments and forgetting my initial point. The difference I was initially alluding to is in selection criteria. The emoji. for assigning a character a Unicode codepoint is very different from the criteria for creating a new emoji. Bitcoin has a unique symbol and there is a real need to use that symbol in written material. Having a unicode character for it solves that problem, and indeed one was added. The Emoji working group has other selection criteria (which is why you have emoji for eggplant and flying money, and other things that are not otherwise characters. So the fact that a certain character exists, despite its very limited use, has no bearing on whether something else should have an emoji to represent it.
I am aware of the lists and guidelines, I've been linking and quoting them to you. :)
It's their report on the standards that highlights that they don't think there's a clear distinction between "emoji" and "character", and that it's mostly a matter of user expectation.
Hence some pictograph characters having a default "text" presentation, and some having a default "emoji" presentation. They also clarify that some things with a default "emoji" presentation aren't in the set of characters people would associate with emoji and shouldn't be counted if you're trying.
I understand what you're saying, which is that the selection criteria is different for a "language symbol" as opposed to a "pictographic symbol", so they're different things.
I disagree and think that "default presentation" might be a better metric, but that ultimately it's about user and platform expectations. The same character can be presented "emoji" style or "text" style depending on context.
In any case, I'd also agree that there's no viability to the notion that people use the Bitcoin symbol in a way that's independent of the one meaning that it has, so a colorful cartoony rendition becoming an option doesn't really fit. "His Christmas gift was $$$" is a sentiment people might express. "The hotel is ₿₿₿" just ... Isn't.