In times of despair, it is important for people to have the ability to communicate in order to avoid adding isolation to the mix. One of our primary methods of digitally communicating emotion is through the use of Emojis.

I wasn’t surprised to find that there is currently only one Emoji that includes a visible face mask. However, I was sad to see that its expression looks rather gloomy.

No doubt when the original face-mask Emoji was first introduced, face masks in Western society were primarily worn by professionals or those under medical care. However, we have since joined our global neighbours in places where face masks are worn by everyone and as some people have pointed out, this makes communicating emotions through facial expressions really tough.

Given this, I think we need more expressive face-mask Emojis. I think a suite of Emojis expressing alternate emotions through a face mask would allow us a small opportunity to show solidarity with one another as we brave this new world.

Below is my attempt at melding Apple’s current Face With Medical Mask Emoji (top left) with a few of their other Emojis to create my proposal for new face-mask Emojis. I’m sure a better artist could come up with more effective examples; I simply hope to illustrate the idea.

I’m probably breaking some sort of copyright by doing this, but who cares? Come at me, Tim Apple.

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