After being proposed as a draft back in July, this week 37 new emoji have been officially approved for use as part of the recent Unicode 14.0 update.
While it’s always a challenge to pick new emoji from among the thousands of submissions, the latest batch of new emoticons as shown off by Emojipedia includes some real bangers like the biting lip emoji, the new person with crown emoji, and my personal favourite — the melting face emoji — which probably accurately describes how a lot of Americans are feeling after surviving the hottest ever summer on record this year.
Elsewhere, the Unicode Consortium has also added some thoughtful LGBT-friendly icons including the new pregnant man and pregnant person emoji, while the new emoji for coral serves as a salient reminder about the plight facing our world’s aquatic habitats. Meanwhile, for us techies, there’s a handy new low battery emoji and an x-ray emoji that are sure to be dropped in texts and messages.
Among the 838 new characters in #Unicode14 are 37 new #emoji, along with new emoji sequences, that are expected to show up on 📱s, 💻s, and other platforms sometime next year → https://t.co/deSr1g6m8k #絵文字 pic.twitter.com/xuTf8Os02K
— The Unicode Consortium (@unicode) September 7, 2021
However, the most popular new emojis will most likely be the new heart hands emoji (this one has been long overdue), the new troll emoji (finally, an icon to represent the most popular persona on the internet), or possibly the new hand with index finger and thumb crossed emoji, which apparently sees a lot of use among K-pop fans (don’t ask me, I’m not a BTS stan).
And even though it doesn’t immediately appear contentious, the new identification card emoji is likely to spark some vitriol given recent moves by New York and other states as they begin implementing vaccine passports in their communities.
Aside from the 37 new emoji which includes seven new smiley faces of various types, Unicode 14.0 is also adding 75 new skin tone variations, which brings the total number of new emoji to 112.
Unfortunately, while the latest batch of new emoji was officially approved this week, it may be another few months until they actually land on your phone or laptop, as there tends to be a bit of lag time between when new emoji get announced and when companies like Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, and others create customised versions of the new emoji for their devices/platforms.
So until then, here’s a salute to all the people who are itching to add some hidden meanings to all these new emojis, because I don’t think that new beans emoji is ever going to be used unironically.