Meeple Emoji
I submitted a proposal to the Unicode Consortium for them to include a meeple emoji in their next release. I find out in October if it was approved or rejected.
The format for proposing a new emoji is a bit overwhelming, but it keeps frivolous proposals from seeing the light of day.
There’s a lot that could go right with this request. The emoji itself is unique. It’s essentially public domain. It distinguishes modern tabletop games from older ones (e.g. Chess ♟). We’d all use it like crazy. And for whatever reason, nobody has been foolish enough to propose it.
But there’s a lot that can go wrong, too. The number of accepted proposals is small; Unicode limits the number of emojis they license each year. They only opened it back up for submissions in April 2021 after the pandemic shut them down in 2020, so there’s a backlog of requests. And we as a hobby don’t search on the word “meeple” enough; the median number of search results for accepted proposals in Google is 750 million. Searches for “meeple” in Google are only 3 million.
Still, many emoji proposals get accepted because they break new ground. My feeling is by defining this graphic element as covering all of modern tabletop gaming, I’d stand out in the stack of proposals.
So, hang in there, and let’s hope for some good news in a month’s time. Search for “meeple” in Google and Bing if you want to help the cause. Or if I’m not successful and you’re interested in helping write the next proposal, DM me in social!
Published Sep. 5, 2021.
Update (9/23/2021): As I was re-reading the Emoji Submission FAQ, I found this distressing lil’ nugget:
Q: I submitted an emoji proposal and it was declined, even though it was well-formed. Can I appeal the decision or submit again?
A: Emoji proposals declined within the last two years are not eligible for re-review and cannot be re-submitted during that time. Various factors may cause a well-formed proposal to be declined, including lack of compelling evidence for popularity as an emoji and lack of anticipated support by platform vendors.
Update (10/27/2021): The draft candidate emojis for Unicode version 15.0 are available, and meeple is not included. Many of the candidates are from submissions in 2019, so the next thing to look for is whether my proposal was declined or is “under consideration” in the Emoji Requests list.
