Alexis Belliveau encountered a challenge when he sought an Acadian flag emoji for his band’s social media post on National Acadian Day and found it did not exist. Emojis, widely used in text messages and emails, represent emotions, ideas, and objects, with numerous variations, including flags from various countries.
Belliveau and his associate Julien Robichaud, both from Moncton, N.B., are in the process of proposing the creation of an Acadian flag emoji to Unicode, a California-based non-profit organization that assesses and sanctions emoji proposals. Belliveau emphasized the significance of the Acadian flag as a source of pride and the importance of expressing it digitally through an emoji.
To bolster their proposal, Belliveau and Robichaud launched an online campaign featuring a website detailing Acadian history, the flag’s symbolism, and a petition with over 10,000 signatures. Belliveau stressed the value of community support in demonstrating the potential usage and impact of the proposed emoji.
Despite the absence of an official Acadian flag emoji, people have been creatively displaying their Acadian pride using emoji sequences. Belliveau identified a potential workaround to Unicode’s guidelines by combining existing emojis (a star and the flag of France) for the proposed Acadian flag emoji.
Unicode’s criteria for approving an emoji include uniqueness, global usability, potential ambiguity, and integration into sentences. Belliveau aims to spread awareness among Acadians worldwide and intends to formally submit the proposal in the upcoming winter, targeting Acadian communities in Louisiana, France, Quebec, and throughout Canada.