The Android Heretic, Issue 2: By Removing the Blob Emojis, Google Ripped the Soul Out of Android

Yes, I feel really strongly about this

A version ago, Google decided that it would be a good idea to remove the highly idiosyncratic blob emojis from Android and replace them with a new set of bland, characterless emojis that would take the Android set closer to that of other platforms.

While not everyone will agree with me, the new set looks like, well… shit. Fucking shit.

I’ll be honest with you: I love the blob emojis so much and hate the new emojis with such a passion that I have not upgraded my Pixel XL to Android 8.0 and do not plan to. To me, one of the things that made Android so freaking special has been taken away and it has been replaced with a mockery of its former self.

Why so serious, Antonis? Big deal. Grow up.

No. No, thanks.

You see, you may not realize it but the blob emoji set actually contained an enormous amount of beautiful, whimsical, retro-styled illustrations that were not blob people.

These emojis were connected to the Android interface in a way that felt organic: Material Design, with its bold use of color and typography, regularly brings to mind graphic design trends from past decades (the fifties and sixties, especially), transposed to the 21st century. The blob emoji set illustrations are similarly retrofuturistic and give the impression that they belong in this environment.

On the other hand, the new set, with its liberal use of gradients and strong outlines, looks like something out of a Geocities website in the mid-90s. It is, quite simply, a disaster.

That’s, like, subjective. You can’t generalize about this. Some people like the new set.

Your mom is subjective.

Also, some people like touching little kids and also Pepsi instead of Coke. Doesn’t mean they are right.

Here’s the deal: soon after Google decided to remove the blob emoji set from Android (and following a brief 48-hour-long revolt on Reddit, after which they moved on to more pressing matters, like which flagship performs better on Geekbench or some shit) I decided that I would take matters in my own hands and at least try to keep some of those lovely emojis around.

How? By making designs based on them and putting them on t-shirts, mugs and stationery on various print-on-demand services.

One of the designs is the one you saw on the header of this article. I call this one ‘Summer Breeze’ and I absolutely love it — it’s a collage of sea- and summer-related blob emojis. Yep, the entire thing is composed by illustrations from the blob emoji set.

Now, just to make a point I’ll recreate this collage using the exact same emojis from the ‘updated’ Oreo set.

First, let me get the face blowing air (referred to as ‘windface’ by the illustrator) from the new set and place it next to the blob set one

Besides the new one looking like it has a couple of extra chromosomes, the airiness, the class, the finesse, the Minoan Civilization-inspired artistry has been completely removed and replaced by a badly-weighted, disgustingly-gradiented (new word alert!) asymmetric piece of crap.

But let’s not stop here: let’s recreate the entire thing!

Here you go.

Both the dolphin and the octopus look like they just got the bad news after a biopsy and the whale looks like it’s daydreaming about chocolate pudding. Or dicks. You decide. As for the fish emoji, is it supposed to be a plastic-facsimile-of-a-fish emoji?

Notice that the seashell is missing because near the end of my attempt to recreate the collage with the new emojis I lost my will to live.

Now is anyone going to seriously sit here and tell me that the collage created with the new emojis even compares to the collage created with the blob emojis?

I mean, you can clearly see the progression of style and art in both of them.

In the blob emoji set’s case, it goes like this

Someone saw some Minoan civilization paintings at the Knossos palace

She filtered them through a mid-20th century illustrative lightness

She brought them into the modern age with consistency but didn’t forget about what makes art special

In the Oreo emoji set’s case, it goes like this

Someone found some Minoan civilization-era vases with rotting dates at the bottom of the sea

Hungry as he was, he ate the damn things

He then had explosive diarrhea and sprayed the walls, the floor and the screens of our devices with foul-smelling, drippy shit.

You fucking asshole, emojis are not there to be used in collages

You shut your filthy mouth.

Collages or not, there’s no doubt in my mind that the new set is ugly, bland, inconsistent and a pathetic me-too attempt on the part of Google to mimic the emojis (sorry, I meant ‘make them consistent’) in the emoji sets of other platforms. To achieve that, it took away what made the old set special and, in the process, killed a small but organic part of Android.

Long live the blobs.

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