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Redhead redemption: Give us our ginger emojis, petition demands

A new Change.org petition asks Apple to add redheads to its emoji diversification update. How else will we be able to chat about Harry Potter's best friend Ron Weasley?

Bonnie Burton
Journalist Bonnie Burton writes about movies, TV shows, comics, science and robots. She is the author of the books Live or Die: Survival Hacks, Wizarding World: Movie Magic Amazing Artifacts, The Star Wars Craft Book, Girls Against Girls, Draw Star Wars, Planets in Peril and more! E-mail Bonnie.
Bonnie Burton
2 min read

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How can we say no to this happy ginger emoji? Ginger Parrot

Having red hair and blue eyes is considered the rarest combination in the world, which you'd think would make the look cool and desirable. But throughout history redheads have been ostracized and blamed for everything from vampirism to witchcraft (and not the cool Hogwarts kind). Gingers have often been treated like devil children.

Sure, gingers carry the mutated MC1R gene that causes red hair, produce their own Vitamin D and are more sensitive to pain than the rest of the world, but that doesn't mean they should be ignored on the emoji list.

So Emma Kelly, who runs a website called Ginger Parrot that celebrates redheads, decided to start a Change.org petition asking that redhead emojis be added to the new list of more diverse suggested symbols.

"Redheads. In all their glorious gingerness, they've been missed out. Again," Kelly wrote in her petition description. "If you say you're going to diversify, why not add a few red-haired emoji in the mix? Natural redheads may be rare at less than 2 percent of the world's population, but that is 138,000,000 iPhones waiting to happen."

Critics of Apple have already voiced their anger at the lack of non-Caucasian emojis, and Apple last month announced that it would roll out racially diverse emojis in the next

. In fact, the Diversify My Emoji campaign inspired Kelly to start one in honor of redheads. And why not? When you take into account that redheads only make up 1 percent to 2 percent of the world's entire population, they are by definition a minority.

As of Thursday, March 5, the petition has more than 3,100 supporters of the 5,000 needed. So if you want redheads to be represented in the next batch of new emojis so we can properly talk about famous gingers like the Weasleys, Prince Harry, Felicia Day, Elmo, Scooby Doo's Daphne, Lucille Ball, Karen Giillan, Van Gogh, Chuck Norris, Conan O'Brien, Joss Whedon, Julianne Moore, Louis C.K., Molly Ringwald, Ron Howard, Shaun White, and Seth Green, among many others, sign the petition.