On National Acadian Day last year, Alexis Belliveau discovered the absence of an Acadian flag emoji while looking for one to use in a social media post promoting his band. Emojis are symbolic icons commonly employed in text messages and emails to convey emotions, ideas, and objects, with numerous variations, including various flags.
Belliveau, along with his friend Julien Robichaud from Moncton, N.B., is in the process of preparing a proposal for an Acadian flag emoji to be submitted to Unicode, a California-based non-profit organization responsible for evaluating and sanctioning emoji proposals.
Expressing the significance of the Acadian flag in digital representation, Belliveau remarked, “There’s a lot of pride in the Acadian flag. In a digital world, it would be nice to be able to express that through an emoji.” He emphasized the importance of involving younger generations in Acadian culture through such initiatives.
To bolster their submission, Belliveau and Robichaud launched an online campaign that includes a website detailing the history and significance of Acadians, alongside a petition boasting over 10,000 signatures. Belliveau expressed the importance of garnering substantial support to strengthen their application and ensure widespread usage of the proposed emoji.
Despite the absence of an official Acadian flag emoji, individuals have creatively expressed their Acadian pride using sequences of existing emojis. Belliveau highlighted various emblematic sequences and pointed out a loophole in Unicode’s guidelines, as the proposed emoji is a combination of the star and the flag of France emojis.
Unicode’s criteria for approving emojis encompass factors like uniqueness, global usage frequency, versatility, and applicability in sentences. Belliveau is actively spreading awareness among Acadians worldwide and aims to formally submit the proposal during the upcoming winter season, targeting Acadian communities across the globe for support and recognition.
