On National Acadian Day last year, Alexis Belliveau couldn’t find an Acadian flag emoji to use in a social media post for his band. This led him and his friend Julien Robichaud, both from Moncton, N.B., to start a proposal for an Acadian flag emoji with Unicode, a non-profit organization in California that reviews and approves new emoji ideas.
Belliveau emphasized the significance of the Acadian flag as a symbol of pride and the need to express it in the digital sphere through an emoji. The duo launched an online campaign to support their application, highlighting the historical context of Acadians, the flag’s significance, and a petition with over 10,000 signatures.
Despite the absence of an official Acadian flag emoji, people have creatively used sequences of emojis to express their Acadian pride. Belliveau pointed out that their proposed emoji combines existing emojis, such as the star and the flag of France, to bypass potential rejection based on Unicode’s guidelines.
Unicode evaluates potential emojis based on criteria like uniqueness, global usage, versatility, and suitability for sentences. Belliveau aims to spread awareness among Acadians worldwide and intends to officially submit the proposal in the upcoming winter, reaching out to Acadian communities in various regions globally.
