WordPress Adds Emoji 13.1 Support

In WordPress 5.8, currently in beta and launching for everyone in July, adds support for Emoji 13.1!

As a quick refresher, WordPress has a built-in emoji support detection system in place that checks to see if your site visitor’s browser can support the latest emoji. If they are not able to see the latest emoji, we will automatically replace emoji characters with emoji images.

This allows authors to use any emoji character they wish and ensure that everyone can see them. Without this, site visitors would see those little boxes with an X or instead of seeing a transformed emoji (like an female astronaut, they would see an astronaut with the female symbol next to it… which isn’t great).

What’s in Emoji 13.1? Check out Emojipedia’s rundown of 13.1’s changes for Twemoji—the Twitter emoji design that we use within WordPress.

Some of the hightlights include being able to express bending a broken heart or show off your heart is aflame (also perfect for talking about the Sacred Heart, heh). Want to stay a little hidden in the clouds? Me too.

The bearded person emoji now supports a whole range of gender, skin tone, and hair color. Lastly, the couple and kiss combination emoji have a wide range of options now with various skin tones, genders. Before, there were pretty limited options so you couldn’t really express a couple or kiss that matched you unless you happened to fit one of existing combinations. Now, I can send my wife an emoji that better displays us

WordPress’ goal is to enable you to express yourself however you wish, including through emoji without making you feel lightheaded !