LONDON: Aiming to break down beauty stereotypes and make the digital world more inclusive, a group of young students and professionals from London have designed what they hope will become the first ever emojis of Black and mixed-race hairstyles.

The project, a partnership between youth-led organisation RISE.365 and PR agency Good Relations, aims to tackle texturism, a form of discrimination where Afro hair is often perceived as “unprofessional”, “unattractive” or “unclean”, they said.

There are nearly 4,000 emojis — symbols that represent human emotions or objects online — but none feature Black or mixed-race hairstyles. RISE.365 and Good Relations took matters into their own hands to change that.

A group of young people sketched what the emojis should look like, and then designers came up with the final product.

Googling ‘Afro hair’ could help the emojis’ acceptance, as Unicode considers how frequently the term associated with the symbol is used, RISE.365 said.

“(The emojis) would break down the society standards of your hair having to be straight to be seen as desirable,” said Jayzik Duckoo, a 17-year-old who worked on the project. “I hope people wear their hair proudly.”

Four emojis were created featuring afros, braids, cornrows and locs. They will be submitted to Unicode, the California-based group responsible for emojis, in April 2025 for consideration.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2024