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The first emoticons, which were formed from punctuation marks, appeared in the early 1980s. And in the late 1990s, emoji or emoji appeared in Japan. That’s why there are so many incomprehensible, Japanese things in them. For example, why is the blinker in the standard Unicode set red, and not blue, as in most countries? We are going to tell you all about it below.
🚨 The “Siren” emoticon was assigned the code U+1F6A8, with which it was added to the Places and Travel section of the Unicode 6.0 standard in 2010.
A Siren, Police Blinker, or Flashing Beacon is a type of special warning light (special signal) mounted on the roof of a vehicle. Beacons are used to warn road users, prioritize traffic and give other privileges to special vehicles.
Usually police flashers are blue, but in Japan police use red flashers. The reason is this: after the defeat in World War II, Japan’s territory was occupied by Allied forces, mainly the U.S. Army. The Americans imposed military rule and brought with them their equipment and vehicles, including police cars. Since Japan’s internal security forces had not previously used color schemes on their vehicles, they borrowed them from US police cars. At that time, the Americans used flashing beacons that were red in color. Later, the Americans began to use blue and white flashing lights, while the Japanese stayed true to their new tradition.
The Siren Emoji isn’t the one you use or see often, as it has negative associations for most people. Usually it stands for Caution, Alarm, Warning, but some people just use it to mark an importance of a message or any event.
Most often the Red Siren Emoji warns of a threatening danger and urges the interlocutor to help. The signal fire of red color, the rotation of which is accompanied by a loud howl of a siren can personify the fire department, ambulance, police. To specify the “danger zone” this emoji is usually used in combination with others, such as 🚓🚑🚒 or 🚔.
When combined with this ⚠ red siren emoji, it means something really important or dangerous. The following emoji can also indicate the importance of a message or situation: ‼️ or ⛔️.
In general, the red color of the emoticon is usually associated with the urgency and importance of something. Recently, such a concept as “Red Flag” is also very popular, and Siren Emoji is often used to reinforce its meaning.
Red flags are used to warn of danger, such as a storm or risk of fire. And during a race, a red flag is waved to stop a race because of bad track conditions. Also, red cards in soccer and red traffic lights mean that you have to stop.
The concept of a red flag as a sign that a healthy relationship with a person will not work has been used for several years.
So, today we told you about Siren Emoji. But we want to add a little bit of etymology. Why is flashing light called that? Sirens are myxomorphic creatures with the head of a woman and the body of a bird, in the classical period they were often depicted with arms and a female torso. According to Greek mythology, the Sirens are the daughters of the river deity Acheloi and one of the Muses, from whom they inherited a beautiful voice. Their sad fate is to lure sailors to perdition or perish themselves. This voice is the reason for the name of flash beacons.