Proposal for Emoji: Sad flower submerged in liquid fossil fuel drop
beneath shower of toxic greenwash
Emoji Submitter: Jennifer Daniel on behalf of the Emoji Subcommittee To:
Unicode Technical Committee Date: July 14, 2022
Submitter: Petra Hornby
Date: July 31, 2024
1. Identification.
a) Keywords: greenwashing, deception, gaslighting, Shell, betrayal, liquid
natural gas, brainwashing, LNG, Volkswagen, cruise ship, Matson, Royal
Caribbean Group, Shell, TotalEnergies, Citibank
Category: Smileys & Emotion - face-negative

2. Images:

3. Factors for Inclusion.
1. Multiple meanings: Does the emoji have notable metaphoricalreferences or symbolism? This does not include puns.
2. For example, archetype, metaphorical use, and symbolism may besupplied.
shark is not necessarily only the animal, but also used for a1.
huckster, in jumping the shark, loan shark, and so on.
pig face may be used to evoke “hungry,” “zodiac sign,” “food,” or2.
“farming.”
flexed biceps are used to denote strength or simply “elbow.”
3.
3. Mark this as n/a unless there are compelling examples.

🦈🐷💪At first, The Sad Greenwash-Poisoned Flower overwhelms through its visual complexity,
but with patience, a stunning simplicity of meaning emerges. Notice how the droplet
mimics the bottom-heavy slope of a teardrop, a fractal of the tear falling from theflower’s eye. Liquid sorrow. The gradation between black and blue evokes two elements

at once: a black tear and the sea. A maritime melancholy. Beneath a shower, a thirsty
flower ought to be happy, but lo! The liquid is a toxic green. What is this situation? Whyis the plant crying? Is that a gas pump? Important questions that reveal themselves withtime, but there is no time—the planet is boiling—so we’ll explain:
Were you to contemplate the symbol over time—which is our strong recommendation to
the committee, ideally in subdued light in a very, very hot bath—what comes obviously
to the forefront is what is not seen. Colorless, odorless. Sit with it, and you’ll begin tofeel its unsettling power radiate towards your body. “Is it…methane??” you wouldwonder. And, you would be right.
The flower is trapped within the sealed confines of the droplet, like heat trapped by themethane membrane sealing the earth, made thicker each year by cow farts, yes, butalso by industries that brainwash the public into thinking it’s not a gross planet-killer fuel.
“But why a droplet? Methane is a gas,” you say. Right again! But not when it’s cold.
Condensed into fluid form, methane becomes Liquified Natural Gas: anactually-very-toxic-fuel-marketed-widely-as-clean-energy. Or for short, L N. G.

👏 👏 👏And so the flower weeps, beneath a shower of poison rain washing the brain. As you’ve
probably guessed, this dribbling green are Greenwashing Lies manufactured byproponents of LNG, the governments and companies keen to convince the public thatsomehow, methane fuel is more sustainable than carbon dioxide despite the fact that it
traps 80x more heat than CO2.

Eighty times more heat.

🔥🌎☠️😭

Iconic.
Although the science is clear that methane expedites the death of life on earth
exponentially faster than CO2 emissions, leaks into water systems, pollutes low income
communities and more, corporations continue to market LNG as a “clean energy.” But
why? Because money. And how does one manage to sell death to the masses and getrich doing it?
Greenwashing!

🎉☠️Billions of dollars poured into advertisements that mislead consumers into believing that
LNG is “green.” Painting over dirty tar-black lies with a bright green veneer thatscreams: “sustainable!” You’ll notice that the green lies gushes down from a gas pump,reminding us that this situation is in fact the most expensive and expansive gaslighting
scheme in history.
But deception is far from new. Consumers have long been lied to by profit-hungry
corporations eager to sacrifice the public good for their bottom line. And thus the emoji
becomes a metaphor for the universal grief induced by misleading advertising. Like thecold converts amorphous methane gas into a liquid, this emoji concretizes a formlessfeeling of widespread betrayal that until now, has been woefully neglected by theUnicode library.
It should be also noted that the droplet can be used to represent all the ways fossil fuelscause death and destruction: coastal oil spills, pipeline leaks into flowering prairies,
fracking pollution, and so on. The droplet could be interpreted as water polluted by
fracking for methane in the first place. In this way, its use is infinite.
It can also be used to indicate interpersonal gaslighting, like when your mom yells “I’mnot yelling at you!” Similarly, the droplet can symbolize drops of viscous liquid like: tar,molasses, or runny stool.

💦🧼👐

😍😭

4. Use in sequences: Can the emoji be used well in sequences?
can convey handwashing,can indicate
1. For example,

🗑️🔥overwhelming cuteness, andfor garbage fire.
2. Mark this as n/a unless there are compelling examples.

Used in combination with any industry symbol (car, bank, boat), this symbol designed byinfamous artist Shepard Fairey communicates an industry’s attempt to poison the brainsof the public through misleading claims about their environmental soundness. For
example:🏦= Any bank that massively overstates their environmental positions (i.e. using

accounting tricks to appear “sustainable” while quietly financing oil and gas
development that’s expediting planetary collapse, or donating funds to protect one
toothpick in the Amazon Rainforest).

🏦

Example: “My bank is a. They’ve got all these ‘we’re going carbon neutral’billboards but they financed that pipeline that exploded in my grandma’s backyard.”🚢 = Any cruise line or shipping company engaged in making false claims about thesustainability of using LNG as fuel. (e.g. Royal Caribbean).

Example: “Royal Caribbean says they’re going carbon neutral but the fuckers areburning LNG. More like neutralizing polar bears. Sounds liketo me!”🚗 = Volkswagen
Example: “Hey what year is your🛻🚗 ?”= Gaslighting greenwashing sons of bitches in the automobile industry

But the best use of the emoji is superimposed onto ads or entities that represent
environmental crimes permitted by misleading advertising, such as this glamorousRoyal Caribbean eyesore that runs on LNG.

5. Breaks new ground: Does the emoji represent something that is new anddifferent?
1. More weight is given to emoji that convey concepts that are not simply
variants of concepts conveyed by existing emoji or sequences of existing
emoji.
2. Emoji are building blocks. Consider how this character represents acollection/group/family instead of a very specific breed or species.
broom, an emoji for3. For example, because there is already an emoji for
vacuum cleaner would not break new ground
4. Mark this as Yes or No. If Yes, explain why.

🧹This emoji fills a gaping hole in the Unicode library. It is new, it is different, it is sexy.
This emoji also breaks new semantic ground. Has there ever been an emoji thatcaptures the invisible? No. The Sad Greenwash-Poisoned Flower renders visible for the
first time the insidious corporate gaslighting reversing our chances of a livable future.
Fracking for methane breaks physical ground, and a methane emoji breaks culturalground by giving concerned citizens language for their discontent. It gives the world asymbol to flag the lies that pervade public spaces, televisions, billboards, that riskleaking into minds like methane leaks into the air, both leading the climate closer tocollapse.
All that’s left is for Unicode to break ground and heed the moral call to accept this emoji.
6. Distinctiveness: Explain how and why your emoji represents a distinct,recognizable, visually iconic entity.
1. Emoji images are paradigms, semantically representing a class of entities
much larger than a specific image. Thus
beer mug represents not justa mug with exactly the shape you see on the screen, filled with beer ofexactly that color, but rather beer in general.
2. The term recognizable means most people should be able to discern thatthe representation is intended to depict a paradigm of that particular entity,
without foreknowledge.
1. The image you supply will not be used in products, but insteadneeds to demonstrate that the emoji is distinct enough to berecognizable at typical emoji sizes, such as 18×18 pixels on mobilephone screens.
3. The term entity includes not only concrete objects, but also actions oremotions.

🍺🏃😢

1. Actions or activities may be represented by capturing a person or

object in the midst of that action. Thus
person running also
represents the action of running, andcrying face also
represents crying.
2. Emotions or mental states can be represented by a face or body
exhibiting that emotion or state. Thus
angry face also represents
being angry, or anger.
3. A representation may use commonly understood “comic-style”
visual elements, such as
thought bubble, motion lines as inwaving hand andspeaking head, or other signifiers such as insleeping face.

😠

😴

🗣

💭

👋

The Sad Greenwash-Poisoned Flower represents both LNG greenwashing in particular,
and corporate deception in general. It can be used in all cases of misinformation,
corporate virtue signaling, and gaslighting.
Emotionally, it can be used to symbolize the ennui that deadens the soul of those born
into modern lives, into a world in which corporate powers deny all that is sacred for thesake of profit. It is an emblem of Now. The Sad Greenwash-Poisoned Flower is thezeitgeist. The flower evokes the principle of life, of self-organizing natural systems, ofthe awe-striking beauty that lies all around and within humanity and the ecosystems inwhich we’re nested. The single tear dripping from its eye crystallizes the existential
sorrow of an era ruled by corporate power invested in destroying all that is good.
Submerged in the toxic drop, the flower’s confinement touches the hopelessness of thepredicament. And the shower of green toxic droplets upon its head captures thesensation of having one’s reality distorted by well-financed corporate messaging. It is asymbol of disillusionment, of homecoming to a dark reality, of betrayal by the architectsof the modern world.
This iconic droplet is immediately recognizable as a symbol of corporate gaslighting.
Like coolness compresses gaseous methane into liquid form, this emoji concretizes aformless concept into form, just as all form emerged from formlessness. And thus, weargue this emoji represents not just the grief of a greenwashed world but the source oflife itself, the compressed nothingness at the center of the Big Bang. And if there isanything more vital, or more iconic, than “everything and nothing” to add to the symbolic
lexicon of our time, we can’t imagine it.

7. Usage level: Measures that can be presented as evidence include the following:
1. Frequency: There should be high usage of the emoji term worldwide.
1. Your proposal must include screenshots of searches for your emoji

on the following platforms*:
1. Google Video Search

2. Google Books

3. Google Trends: Web Search

4. Google Trends: Image Search

5. Google Books Ngram Viewer

8. Completeness: Does the proposed emoji fill a gap in existing types of emoji?
1. In Unicode Version 8.0, for example, five emoji were added to complete🦂🙈🙉🙊

🅰️🅱️🆎🅾️

the zodiac, includingscorpion.
}, three
2. Other examples of fixed complete sets are blood types {wise monkeys {}, and four card suits {♠️♣️♥️♦️}.
1. Example: If the Unicode Standard included only three of the four
card suits, proposing the fourth one would complete the set andrequire no future additions (see Open-ended below).

3. The goal is iconic representation of large categories, not completeness inthe sense of filling out the categories of a scientific or taxonomic
classification system.
1. Proposals should not attempt to make distinctions that are toonarrow. For example, there is an emoji forreminder ribbon, andthere is no need for finer gradations of color, such as purple ribbon.
frog, which can be used
2. Example: There is already an emoji forto represent all amphibians.
4. Mark this as n/a unless there are compelling examples.

🐸🎗️💩

In cases where the droplet is used to represent diarrhea or runny stool, it fills a gap in
the “types of excrement” family that so far is inadequately represented by a single.
The existing poomoji discriminates against diverse colon types and health statuses
worldwide, and this emoji helps begin to rectify that problem.
9. Compatibility: Are these needed for compatibility with popular existing systems,🙄

such as Snapchat, X, or QQ?
face with rolling eyes was previously a popular emoticon on
1. Example:
many web bulletin boards.
2. For this to be a positive factor, the proposed emoji must also haveevidence of high-frequency use in that existing system. Cite and provide
screenshots for any claims made.
3. Mark this as n/a unless there are compelling examples.
n/aFactors for Exclusion
1. Already representable: Can the concept be represented by another emoji orsequence, even if the image is not exactly the same?
1. Examples:
1. Handwashing can already be represented bywater
droplets + soap + palms up together.
2. Squirrel is already often represented bychipmunk.
3. A building associated with a particular religion might be representedbyplace of worship followed by a one of the many religious
symbols in Unicode.
4. Halloween could be represented by either justjack-o-lantern, ora sequence of
jack-o-lantern + ghost.

🐿️🛐

🎃👻

💦🧼👐
🎃

No.

🍣

2. Overly specific: Is the proposed character overly specific?
1. Example:
sushi represents sushi in general, although images
frequently show a specific type, such as maguro. Adding saba, hamachi,sake, amaebi, and others would be overly specific.
2. A limited number of emoji can be added each year. Thus, emoji that“break new ground” are strongly favored over emoji that are variants ofothers. Therefore, a proposal for additional species of owl would beviewed negatively.
No. As a symbol of corporate misinformation, The Sad Greenwash-Poisoned Flower isthe most nonspecific a symbol could be.
3. Open-ended: Is it just one of many, with no special reason to favor it over othersof that type?
1. If this emoji is added, will it result in the need to add other similar types?
The addition of one emoji is the exclusion of another.
2. Example: There is a large and ever-growing number of dog breeds or
flavors of beer that exist, so adding individual specific breeds or flavors
would favor one over any other.
Because the symbol is widely applicable to all cases of greenwashing across industries
and sectors, and because it can translate to all cases of feeling gaslit, there will not be aneed to add any similar type of emoji in the future. Unless of course corporations inventa new means of widely deceiving the public for the sake of profit, in which case yes,
there will be a need.
4. Transient: Is the expected level of usage likely to continue into the future, orcould it just be a fad?
1. Transient or faddish symbols are poor candidates for encoding.
As the planet continues to warm, and global governments shift increasingly to the right,
and capitalism wends its tendrils ever deeper, yes, we presume the need for entities tocontinue lying about their impact. Should they tell the truth they would cease to exist.
5. Faulty comparison: Are proposals being justified primarily by being similar to (ormore important than) existing emoji?
1. An existing emoji’s existence does not justify proposals for emoji like them.

📫📪📬📭

2. Examples:
1. Four different mailboxes {} do not justify adding a “moreimportant than a mailbox” emoji.
2.
new button does not justify adding an emoji for “OLD,” or anemoji for “NEU” (German). The same is true of ideographic emoji,such asJapanese “reserved” button.
3. The emoji {} do not justify additional front versus full-bodyviews of the same animal.
4. The emoji {} or {} do not justify adding different varietiesof the same kind of animal.
5. The Tokyo Tower (a specific building) does not justify adding theEiffel Tower.
3. Many historical emoji violate current factors for inclusion. Once an emoji isencoded it cannot be removed from the Unicode Standard.
4. As new emoji have been added to the Unicode Standard many emoji
categories are reaching or are at a point of saturation. As a result — andupon reflecting on how emoji are used — the Unicode Consortium
approves fewer and fewer emoji proposals every year.
5. More information on how the Unicode Consortium considers new additions
to the standard can be found here.

🆕

🈯

🐶🐕🐕🐩 🐪🐫
🗼

No. The emoji is justified by filling a hole in the lexicon.