Why skin tone modifiers don't work for ?, explained by an emoji

Why doesn't the ? emoji support skin tones? It's a mystery that has troubled Redditors for years — so we asked an emoji historian to break it down for us.

Emoji under the hood @

How Are Emojis Made?

Changing the skin tone, gender or profession of an Emoji in Outlook or other Office applications

Emojis tackle racial diversity

One part politics, one part technology, one part history”: Racial representation in the Unicode 7.0 emoji set - Kate M. Miltner, 2021

Emoji News

Why skin tone modifiers don't work for ?, explained by an emoji historian

Emoji reveal whiteness as driver of technology

Emoji equality: Useless trend or meaningful push to encourage diversity?

PDF] How Gender and Skin Tone Modifiers Affect Emoji Semantics in Twitter