I’m guessing the “emoji all the things” side of the Unicode Consortium is better staffed and funded than the “obscure character set completionist” side.
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Remember the days when technical groups were run by and for people who loved what they do and wanted to make it useful for technical things like discussing paleography as well as for the casual person who neither knows nor cares how many species of double-entendre vegetable they have available to put in their comment on Pornhub?
Yeah, me either.
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Have you considered a membership to the Unicode Consortium? You can get directly involved in various committees and participate in the future of the standard. Individual memberships are less than $100/yr.
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I’m interested, but I’m no Michael Everson.
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Iconography isn’t easy. What else would you suggest should be used to quickly and unambiguously identify gender? Clothes (like bathroom doors tend to use) certainly would be a bad idea. Even depicting genitals would be unambiguous only for biological sex (and would also cause a backlash for “decency” reasons).
I honestly can’t think of another way to do it short of using 
and 
, but of course those symbols can’t shrug or wink…
Obviously hair length had never denoted gender at any point in human history but it is also universally recognised as a symbol and less offensive than most of the alternatives, if only because it has been grandfathered in.
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Turns out there’s a documentary about this:
It’s surprisingly interesting!
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Apple is pushing updates mostly for security patches. The OS updates include new emoji, yes, but so do all brands of smartphone. Users would be far more annoyed if they didn’t have the new emojis because their friends are going to send them messages including them.
You seem to be staking the position that emoji have no value, and I would caution you against that. Why do you suppose the concept keeps getting reinvented again and again throughout the entire history of electronic communication? Emoticons, kaomoji, sarcasm tags, and now emoji. Because emotion, tone, and intent are difficult to get across in text. Especially in the short spaces available in most forms of electronic communication. Emoji are a very efficient way to communicate a complex topic. One character can instantly set the entire tone of your message and ensure it gets interpreted correctly in a way that is universal. That’s immense value, and if you’re determined to be crotchety and pretend otherwise, well, 
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One criticism of using symbols without formally agreed meanings is that you really don’t care whether the recipient understands you or not. I’ll admit that a single symbol, say winky face gives a clear message. More than about three, though, and you’ve given up on communicating and are just shouting and waving your arms. For example, aubergine cake firework firework stamping boot almost definitely won’t convey what you think it does.
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Person in suit levitating got included because the designer of Webdings was a ska fan and included it in that font as a reference to 2 Tone Records, which then got put in Unicode 7.0 along with the Wingdings character sets.
ETA: The logo was based on a picture of Peter Tosh, so does that mean that Person in Suit Levitating: Dark Skin Tone is the canonical version?
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So they were also responsible for WTC, in both wingdings and webdings, then? You say it’s coincidence, but that’s what they want you to think! 
I think it was Q33 and NYC in Wingdings
Yes, memory lapse, thanks.
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For sure. My 13yo nephew’s texts, which consist nearly entirely of modern hieroglyphics, are nonsensical to me. Everything in moderation, as they say.
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That sixth symbol. What is it? Texas in the snow?
It’s: 
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