Holger Krupp

Diving mask emoji

How I helped create 🤿.

I wanted one small symbol for scuba diving. Getting it onto keyboards took a proposal, revisions, statistics, patience, and a lot of refreshing Unicode pages.

When I started scuba diving, I noticed a tiny but persistent gap in everyday language: there was no emoji for it. Swimming had one. Surfing had one. Cycling had one. Diving, somehow, was usually reduced to a few fish. Nice fish, sure, but not the same thing.

So I looked into how emoji become real. They are not just drawn by Apple or Google and released into the world. They go through the Unicode Consortium, the group that maintains the standard behind text on modern devices. If you want a new emoji, you have to make a case for it.

My first idea was a scuba diver. I prepared the proposal, included keywords and category suggestions, and drew sample images based on diving-trip photos. The samples were not meant to become the final artwork; each platform makes its own version. They were there to explain the concept clearly enough for the committee to evaluate it.

The first submission went in on September 12, 2017. The reply came quickly: the emoji subcommittee would review it. Soon after, the direction changed. Rather than adding another person emoji, with all the complexity of gender and skin-tone variations, the committee preferred a piece of equipment. A mask and snorkel could represent diving without multiplying into many variants.

That feedback made sense, so I reworked the idea. On September 30, 2017, I submitted a second proposal for a mask and snorkel. More feedback followed in October: the committee wanted stronger evidence that people would actually use it. That meant adding search data and better justification for why this activity deserved a symbol alongside other sports and outdoor activities.

By December 2017, the proposal had been forwarded to the Unicode Technical Committee and received the reference number L2/17-381. That was the moment it felt officially in motion. From there, the work turned into waiting, checking candidate lists, and watching the idea slowly move through the process.

In 2018, the diving mask appeared among the candidates for the next emoji release. Emojipedia picked it up, redesigned its candidate image, and made the whole thing feel a bit more public. Then came another stretch of waiting.

On February 5, 2019, Unicode published the final Emoji 12.0 list. The diving mask was in it as U+1F93F. After that, the platforms still had to draw and ship their own versions, but the important part was done: scuba diving finally had a dedicated emoji.

There is a small distinction hidden in that sentence. Emoji 12.0 was the emoji release: the list of characters and sequences that told vendors what to support next. Unicode 12.0, the broader text standard, followed on March 5, 2019. That release added 554 characters in total: 61 new emoji code points and 493 non-emoji characters. Emoji 12.0 became bigger than those 61 code points because many emoji are sequences and variants. In the end, the 2019 emoji set contained 230 new emoji when gender and skin-tone variants were counted.

The diving mask itself landed as U+1F93F with the CLDR short name "diving mask" and the keywords "diving", "diving mask", "scuba", and "snorkeling". It sits in the Activities category, in the sport group, which is exactly where I had hoped diving would finally be represented.

How it reached actual keyboards

Approval did not mean everyone could type it the same day. Unicode published sample images and data for implementers, but every platform still had to draw its own icon, update its emoji font or picker, test it, and ship it through an operating system, app, or web release. Unicode said the new emoji would typically start appearing on phones in September or October 2019, with some platforms moving earlier.

That is why the rollout looked staggered. Web platforms and apps could move independently, while phone keyboards depended on OS updates and device manufacturers.

When Platform or standard What changed
February 5, 2019 Emoji 12.0 The final 2019 emoji list was approved, including the diving mask.
March 5, 2019 Unicode 12.0 The broader Unicode release encoded the new characters behind the emoji update.
April 3, 2019 Twitter / Twemoji 12.0 Twemoji shipped support early, which made the diving mask visible on Twitter's own emoji set.
May 21, 2019 Microsoft / Windows 10 May 2019 Update Windows began rolling out its first release with Emoji 12.0 support.
August 14, 2019 Facebook 4.0 Facebook's emoji set added Emoji 12.0 support.
August 23, 2019 Samsung One UI 1.5 Samsung began rolling out full Emoji 12.0 support, starting around the Galaxy Note 10 release.
September 3, 2019 Google / Android 10 Android 10 brought full Emoji 12.0 support to Google's emoji font.
October 28, 2019 Apple / iOS 13.2 Apple shipped the diving mask to iPhone and iPad users as part of its Emoji 12.0 update.
December 17, 2019 WhatsApp 2.19.352 WhatsApp for Android added all 230 Emoji 12.0 designs using WhatsApp's own artwork.

The short timeline

  • September 12, 2017First proposal submitted, originally centered on a scuba diver.
  • September 30, 2017Revised proposal submitted as a mask and snorkel after committee feedback.
  • December 2017The proposal received Unicode reference number L2/17-381.
  • 2018The diving mask appeared as an emoji candidate and started showing up in public candidate lists.
  • February 5, 2019Emoji 12.0 was published with the diving mask at code point U+1F93F.
  • March 5, 2019Unicode 12.0 was released, encoding the underlying characters for the new emoji set.
  • April 3, 2019Twitter enabled Twemoji 12.0, including the diving mask.
  • Late 2019Support spread across Windows, Facebook, Samsung, Android, iOS, and WhatsApp.

It is a small mark on a keyboard, but I still like what it represents: noticing that something is missing, doing the paperwork, listening to feedback, and waiting long enough for a tiny idea to become part of the language people use every day.

This rewritten story is based on my original 2019 blog post, How I created the diving mask emoji. Additional rollout data comes from public Unicode, Emojipedia, Microsoft, and platform release references.