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hippy
It doesn't render properly because not all devices/machines have all the necessary fonts installed.
I agree it looks shit. But actually it was always possible.
Example: https://www.lfgss.com/profiles/49392/
Whose username is: @ぶらぶら
Which is Japanese for "hanging out": https://translate.google.com/#auto/en/%E3%81%B6%E3%82%89%E3%81%B6%E3%82%89
The restriction is that either all usernames are ASCII and Microcosm can never work with any of the extended or unicode characters... meaning we're only really good in the UK, US, Australia and NZ. Or we allow extended and unicode characters, and we don't discriminate against umlauts, Greek script, Russian, Japanese, etc.
The obvious answer is to do the right thing and allow unicode.
The issue is that the fad of emoji is unicode.
We can create a site policy rather than a technical solution: If you put an emoji in your username we reserve the right to ban you on a whim, but more likely we'll change your name to whatever we feel like and we'll never allow you to change it.
That's a bit harsh, but I guess it would work.