Tinder wants interracial couple emojis, and they want them now! While emojis have certainly evolved over time, with same-sex emojis and diverse skin tones hitting our keyboards in 2015, Tinder is seriously shook by the complete lack of interracial couple emojis. Enter the Interracial Couple Emoji Project, a project created by Tinder to #RepresentLove.
Intrigued by a recent study that suggested the Tinder app and other dating apps that followed have contributed to an increase of interracial marriages, Tinder decided to conduct their own study, according to the project’s website. Their Global Tinder Survey on Interracial Relationships found that 61 percent of respondents are “very open” to the idea of interracial dating and marriage, and 52 percent of respondents believe that interracial couples are very underrepresented in social media expressions such as emojis.
From all the facts and figures, Tinder concludes that online dating broadens your horizons and social network and opens people to new experiences, which explains the increase in interracial relationships. BuzzFeed News reports that “more than 4,000 people ages 24 to 45, carried out by marketing analytics firm Morar HPI, 72 percent of people who used dating apps thought Tinder was the most diverse app.”
So now that it’s clear that Tinder users “swipe right on diversity,” Tinder wanted to do something about it. The project includes a video surrounding the hashtag “represent love,” as well as a Change.org petition that calls for 15,000 signatures. The petition’s description poses the thought, “Isn’t it time all love was represented?”
Let’s be real: Emojis are an incredible part of today’s culture, so how awesome would it be to see interracial couples get the representation they deserve? Although Tinder warns that the process of getting proposed emojis approved can take up to two years, you gotta start somewhere, right?