The icons are placed next to the previous relationship-related emojis showing a heterosexual couple holding hands and a heterosexual couple with a son. One shows two men holding hands. The other shows two women in the same position.
From Japan to the world
Emojis started in Japan. Meaning picture (e) and letter (moji), the pictograms quickly become a standard across this visually oriented culture. Apple introduced an emoji keyboard when it got the iPhone into the Japanese market, knowing that emojis were fundamental to compete in that market.
But then Westerners, fascinated by their cuteness, quickly adopted them too. Software appeared to enable that special Apple emoji keyboard on any iPhone or iPad. Every kid and nerdy adult with an Apple device quickly adopted them, and emojis spread like wildfire. Now you can find them everywhere.
Apple has greatly expanded the emoji palette with the new iOS 6, including these two gay and lesbian icons. I wouldn’t be surprised if same-sex couples with babies appear in iOS 7. [Thanks Logan!]
Hah! What gay or lesbian couple would be caught dead in those outfits.
Gay people have no mouths, apparently.
I noticed the same thing!
Does Apple want to silence LGBT free speech?!?!? :P
well that pretty much renders us useless...
What no gay family icon? That's outrageous.
WHAT!? There is no icon for an inter-racial gay couple with a crippled transvestite son!!!
Yeah, I guess the downward spiral all started with you being born Geoff.
Question is, which phone company in Japan added these? Docomo, KDDI or Softbank? Or did Apple do so themselves? And if so, how will they interact with other phones? Are these exclusive to messages between two phones enabled with the latest emoji-inclusive Unicode? Seems unlikely to me that they'd do something so major (new version Unicode reliance) but only with two new emoji to show for it. Or did they choose to overwrite unpopular emoji like the Unicode symposium and other operators did with the racist ones? If so, what did they overwrite? WHat do these emoji show up as if you send them back to a Japanese phone?