Emojis have become a staple in our digital chats, but one in particular gets on Teddy’s nerves. This 10-year-old Brit, who lives in the village of Peppard in Oxfordshire, southeast England, started an online petition against the “nerd” emoji. In his opinion, this emoticon, which shows a face with glasses and protruding teeth, conveys a bad image of people who wear glasses. “They’re making people think we’re nerds and that’s absolutely terrible,” he told the BBC. “It makes me sad and angry, and if I find it offensive, there are thousands of people in the world who also find it offensive,” he added.
“I think people who wear glasses are cool and I worry that people who have to wear glasses for the first time think they look like rabbits or rats,” writes little Teddy in his petition. This was brought to life with the help of his teacher Lisa after Teddy saw the emoji during a message exchange with his cousin. The signature collection campaign has so far reached more than a thousand people. The aim is to encourage Apple to modify the “nerd” emoji: “I ask Apple to change the name of the emoji to Genius Emoji and change the design to the new one that I drew below,” he says and shares his idea for the redesign: a smiling glasses emoji.
It remains to be seen whether the Cupertino company will comply with its request. Note that there is another glasses emoji, but that doesn’t seem to work either. It resembles the famous American comedian known by the nickname Groucho Marx and is generally used for disguise: 🥸.
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