On National Acadian Day last year, Alexis Belliveau sought an Acadian flag emoji to use in a social media post promoting his band but discovered it didn’t exist. Belliveau and Julien Robichaud from Moncton, New Brunswick, are now in the process of proposing the creation of an Acadian flag emoji to Unicode, a California-based non-profit organization that evaluates and approves emoji ideas.
Belliveau emphasized the significance of the Acadian flag as a symbol of pride and the importance of being able to express that digitally through an emoji. In a move to strengthen their application, Belliveau and Robichaud launched an online campaign featuring a brief history of Acadians, the flag’s significance, and a petition with over 10,000 signatures.
Despite the absence of an official Acadian flag emoji, people have been creatively using sequences of emojis to showcase their Acadian pride. Belliveau mentioned a workaround to Unicode’s guidelines by proposing a combination of two existing emojis – a star and the flag of France – for the Acadian flag emoji.
Unicode’s approval criteria for emojis include uniqueness, global usage frequency, versatility in meanings, and applicability in sentences. Belliveau is actively spreading awareness among Acadians globally and aims to submit the proposal officially in the upcoming winter, reaching out to Acadians in various regions worldwide.
