Lowri Moore is 13 years old, wears glasses and is an activist. Her concern: create more acceptance for people who wear glasses. She has already landed a coup at Disney. Now she also wants to give Emoji’s “cool” glasses.
For years, Lowri Moore has fought to ensure that children with glasses are no longer considered ‘nerds’ – Disney’s bespectacled heroine in ‘Encanto’ is to her credit. Now the 13-year-old Briton has a new goal: she wants to ensure that all emojis not only change the color of skin and hair, but that they can also be fitted with glasses. When she was nine, Lowri persuaded Disney to create a bespectacled heroine for the animated film Encanto. Since then, their “GlassesOn” campaign (roughly: putting on glasses) has inspired children and young people and their parents worldwide.
Now the girl from the English county of Nottinghamshire has her sights set on another US giant: in a letter to the California-based Unicode Consortium responsible for standardizing emojis, she demands that the small pictograms be labeled with “cool” ones in the future. Glasses can be provided. Many people would think that children with corrective lenses would no longer be derided by their peers as ‘spectacled snakes’ – but that’s not true, Lowri said: “We’re in contact with a professor in Botswana about him fitting children with glasses, but he said , most didn’t even want to wear them for fear of being considered uncool”.
In fact, research has found that young people who wear glasses are 35 percent more likely to be bullied at school than their non-glasses peers. Lowri warns that this could have serious consequences for those affected. “If they don’t wear their glasses, it hinders their learning – and that in turn can limit their professional opportunities”. That is “unfair”.
Lowri’s new campaign was sparked by her mother trying to find an emoji resembling her daughter. “All she found was a ‘nerd’, a grandmother, a teacher and a teacher.” Lowri doesn’t think that’s enough. That’s why she now requires Unicode to be able to add glasses to existing emojis. As a precaution, the London offices of Google and Meta also received a copy of her letter.
Lowri’s fight to gain acceptance for young glasses wearers began three years ago with a letter to entertainment giant Disney asking for more characters with corrective lenses. Two years later, “Encanto” hero Mirabel Madrigal actually wore glasses, and director Jared Bush revealed that Lowris had inspired him: “I’m your biggest fan,” he replied to her letter – but only after the film’s release for reasons of confidentiality.
The International Blindness Prevention Agency (IAPB) named the British student “Activist of the Year” this year. Lowri’s campaign is helping to raise awareness of the dangers of wearing glasses, says IAPB representative Jessica Thompson. Glasses are the “most effective health measure” for school children: “They reduce the risk of failing at school by 44 percent”.
