Mutant Standard emoji are encoded in one of two ways:
thumbs_up_paw_fk1
represents )1f389
is Codepoints are how text (and emoji) are encoded in the Unicode Standard. Mutant Standard uses this encoding for codepoints when there are emoji that are in this standard.
Some emoji that are in Mutant Standard that are not in the Unicode Standard have been encoded in one of Unicode’s Private Use areas (PUAs).
A PUA is a chunk of numbers that Unicode has declared can be used by anyone without fear of it being taken for something else by them. So if you wanted to encode characters or emoji that Unicode aren’t going to put there themselves, that’s where it would be, and this is where some non-standard Mutant Standard emoji are.
You can easily identify Mutant Standard PUA codepoints by their number - they start from 1016xx
.
Using PUA codepoints can be cool (for example, transmitting emoji between people in systems that can’t have Mutant Standard via other means), but it’s also experimental:
To learn in more detail about Mutant Standard’s encoding system (including PUA), download the reference documents: