Last but not least: Threatened emojis

Emojis have long been an integral part of social media. Most users of WhatsApp, Twitter, and other platforms use these symbols as a matter of course in their everyday communication. They supplement or replace entire sentences. Thousands of years after cave paintings, written language is once again becoming a visual language.

While emoji creators are constantly striving to adapt the emoji selection to reflect reality—with updates featuring different skin tones, same-sex couples, and so on—some of the symbols are in danger of soon existing only in the virtual world: animals. The nature and environmental conservation organization WWF has published an «Emoji Catalog» 17 animal species identifies species that are critically endangered and uses this information to raise funds worldwide via Twitter through a fundraising campaign developed by Wieden & Kennedy London.

The system is simple: Anyone who retweets the WWF’s initial tweet (or uses the hashtag ##EndangeredEmoji) signs up for the fundraiser. At the end of the month, you’ll receive a «report» showing how often you’ve used each of the endangered animal emojis. This results in a small amount that you can donate (voluntarily). In other words: The more often you use the animal emojis, the higher the donation—tweeting for a good cause. You can also opt out at any time with a single tweet.

The idea seems to be catching on; the hashtag is being tweeted almost every second. Even though not everyone seems to realize that tweeting alone doesn’t trigger a donation, the fundraiser is likely to be a success. Let’s hope that all 17 species will still be around by the end of the campaign. For example, the 70 Amur leopards that still exist. (hae)

We're using #EndangeredEmoji to save real animals from extinction. Please retweet to sign up and help. pic.twitter.com/hX1p1GEDZ9

— WWF (@WWF) May 12, 2015