On National Acadian Day a year ago, Alexis Belliveau sought an Acadian flag emoji to use in a social media post for his band but found it didn’t exist. Emojis are symbols representing emotions, ideas, and objects commonly used in text messages and emails, with numerous flag options among thousands of emojis available.
Belliveau and his associate, Julien Robichaud from Moncton, N.B., are preparing a proposal to create an Acadian flag emoji for submission to Unicode, a California-based non-profit organization that reviews and approves emoji suggestions. Belliveau emphasized the significance of being able to express Acadian pride digitally through an emoji, noting its potential to engage younger generations in Acadian culture.
To reinforce their application, Belliveau and Robichaud recently launched an online campaign featuring a website detailing Acadian history, flag symbolism, and a petition supported by over 10,000 signatures. Belliveau stressed the importance of community backing to demonstrate the emoji’s relevance and potential usage within the culture.
Despite the absence of an official Acadian flag emoji, Belliveau mentioned that individuals have creatively used emoji sequences to showcase their Acadian heritage. He highlighted specific sequences and addressed Unicode’s criteria for approving emojis, emphasizing the distinctiveness, global usability, multiple meanings, and sentence integration of the proposed emoji. Belliveau aims to spread awareness among Acadians worldwide and intends to formally submit the proposal in the upcoming winter.