Snapchat Expands Bitmoji Character Inclusion with New Assistive Device Animations

Snapchat has made additional measures to increase inclusiveness in its Bitmoji avatars by adding new types of assistive equipment for Bitmoji characters.

According to Snapchat:

“Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve expanded our representation options by adding the top three most requested assistive devices to Bitmoji and Snapchat: hearing aids, cane stickers, and wheelchair poses for Profiles. Now, in the latest version of Snapchat, our community can see themselves in 3D poses with a wheelchair on their Profile - or choose a hearing aid in a variety of colors, with flexible options to be worn on one ear or both. We’ve also added a selection of our most popular Bitmoji stickers featuring the avatar with a cane.”

Encouraging broader inclusivity is an essential step for Bitmoji, considering Snap's goal of Bitmoji characters becoming "the world's avatar" and being utilized in a variety of applications.

Digital avatars are expected to play a key role in the upcoming metaverse transition, with the goal of having all of us represented by character portrayals in AR and VR settings.

Although Bitmoji has always been a 2D option, Snap is working to enhance the technology so that users may utilize their Bitmoji representations in these new and upcoming spaces.

Snap's ongoing attempts to enable the selling of digital apparel, as well as give retailers new methods to market their wares via digital replicas of their things that can be fitted to Bitmoji characters, are also linked to this.

Currently, it mostly corresponds to the selling of physical products, like having your Bitmoji avatar wear the clothing you'd like to have in real life, and Snap is incorporating purchasing choices into these digital item displays to ease offline purchasing.

However, digital apparel will ultimately become its own marketplace, and Snap is now well on its way to allowing businesses to sell virtual products on the Snap platform.

That is why it is critical to maximize inclusion in order to give more extensive alternatives for creating your virtual self.

Snap claims that its Bitmoji characters in wheelchair stickers, which were released in March, have been shared over 30 million times. It proves that such initiatives are seeing a positive trend and could be deemed a successful strategy.

“Through the launch of these stickers, we’ve seen positive reactions and engagement with our products, and received additional feedback from people who wanted to see themselves in more parts of Snapchat.”

It's a natural and beneficial step forward for Snap's Bitmoji features, which will grow in importance and popularity as time goes on.