Since my Unichar project went live, I've been frequently asked why there are not more Internet favorites in the Unichar top hundred. These are the symbols that people most often mention as what they would expect should be at the top of the list:
〠 Postmark face
ꙮ Cyrillic Letter Multiocular O
۩ Arabic Place of Sajdah
☃ Unicode Snowman
These are all really cool. So why are none of them in the list?
Perhaps these symbols aren't drawing for some people, and so are consistantly voted down by those who can't see them. Lack of character support could hurt some unusual characters, and could also give an unfair advantage to somes scripts over others. More Indic characters draw correctly for more people than those from some character sets, for instance from the extended East Asian character set (C/J/K extension A).
However, all four of the symbols above have other symbols from the same character sets in the top 100. In fact, two characters from the same character set as Unicode Snowman (0x2603) are currently in the Top 10:
☀Black Sun With Rays (0x2600)
↭LEFT RIGHT WAVE ARROW (0x21AD).
Then perhaps it simply comes down to aesthetics. The presentation of two symbols side-by-side emphasizes the formal character of the letters, inviting aesthetic comparison instead of allowing users to hunt for favorites. This was part of the goal for Unichar.
Another take on it is that people are drawn to more exotic sysmbols. Unfamiliar shapes have a sense of mystery, compared to the resolved meaning of some of the characters that appear again and again online (like Unicode Snowman who, after all, has his own website).
Probably all three of these are at work... Let's take a look at the variety of symbols that make it onto the list.
A few consistent favorites in the top 100
It's hard to find much in common among the letters that consistantly stay in the Top 100, but here is a small sample:
Loopy / swirly characters (personally, I love drawing these, they look like the symbols I doodle all the time):
ண Tamil Letter Nna
ꉎ YI SYLLABLE HXAT
Ostantaciously ornamented versions of familiar letters:
ᾦ GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PSILI AND PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMEN
Ğ This diabolical G with Breve -- it takes the familiar letter and changes its character
The more complex shapes seem to do well when they're balanced but not quite symmetrical:
辠 <CJK Ideograph, First>
The motion in this letter is amazing, it's like a suspended explosion:
率 CJK COMPATIBILITY IDEOGRAPH-F96
And then the oddballs, like the ridiculously huge Tamil Year Sign, spilling out of its frame:
௵
Unichar is still new -- as the Top 100 changes over time, new patterns will likely emerge.