Unicode Variation Selectors

While I knew that Unicode has Variation Selectors (VS), I had no idea that CSS has a font-variant-emoji property. So it was time to connect the dots. A variation selector is a Unicode code point that, when placed immediately after another character, signals a specific presentation preference to the renderer. Variation selectors produce no visible output of their own — they are invisible modifiers. — Variation Selectors: How Unicode Controls Text vs Emoji Display, symbolfyi.com Of particular importance are the last two, VS15 and VS16, because they act as the emoji/text presentation toggle. It’s worth noting that not all emojis come in both forms, but if we look at those that do, appending the variation selector can make a difference. When VS15 is appended to a symbol, it forces it to be displayed as text (black and white glyph). Contrarily, when VS16 is appended, it forces the color version to be displayed (emoji). — Emoji displayed as monochrome symbol? 🤔 The Unicode variation…