Most people emoji aren't one character. A woman firefighter is a woman, a skin tone, an invisible joining character, and a fire engine, all glued together. Your phone or computer recognizes the combination and draws a single picture.

That's why some combinations don't exist: there's no woman or man ninja, and genies and zombies don't come in skin tones. When that happens, the builder shows you the closest real emoji and tells you why.

If someone you send it to sees a person and a fire engine side by side instead of one picture, their device is too old to know that combination. It's the same emoji; their screen just can't draw it yet.

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