Did you notice that the current range of emojis isn’t wide enough to cover everything you’d like to express using a tiny picture? Did you lament those occasions when you have to type the word ‘bacon,’ rather than simply being able to send an image of the hangover cure? If this sounds like you, then good news: more than 72 new emoji, including the pig-based food, are on their way.
The Unicode Consortium – the organization that approves this sets of new emojis – they announced that 72 new characters will arrive with the release of Unicode 9.0 on June 21. Food and drink seem to be a popular theme among the new additions, with emojis for avocados, stuffed flatbread, salad, and whiskey tumbler glasses making an appearance.
So how many people will use some of the the emojis? that remain unanswered, more new emojis remains to be seen, but some will no doubt prove quite popular, such as ‘Rolling on the Floor Laughing,’ a Pinnochio-style ‘Lying’ icon, and a ‘Nauseated face.’
There’ll also be new animals, sports-based characters, (clean) hand gestures, and a pregnant woman. Additionally, the update will bring a ‘Selfie’ icon - something that’s taken a surprisingly long time to arrive in emoji form.
Two of the five emjoi that the consortium rejected were ‘Modern Pentathlon’ and ‘Rifle.'
Recently Facebook rolled out 1500 new emojis to its Messenger service, including 100 that are designed “to better reflect gender and skin tones.” The issue of emoji diversity was addressed by four Google employees last month, who developed a new set of images aimed at promoting gender equality in the workplace.
The current characters are just mock ups, and it will take a few months before companies add the final versions to their software.