The Internet Has Nearly Won Its Brave And Valiant Fight For A Taco Emoji
The emoji's been put up for consideration along with 37 others including a unicorn, a burrito and a bottle of champagne (AKA the makings of the best party ever).
For too long, humanity has struggled against great adversity. Despite our best efforts we still live in a world plagued by religious persecution, racial discrimination, war, famine and cruelty. But today we can lay claim to one small victory: no longer must we face the grave injustice of not being able to visually express ourselves over text when eating cheap corn cups of hot spicy meat. REJOICE, MY FRIENDS, THE TACO EMOJI HAS ARRIVED.
Between you, me and the internet: I don’t really have feelings about this. I like tacos. Emojis are good. It’ll be nice having another viable option to represent a vagina when I’m annoying friends with emoji porn, so I guess it’s a good thing. But this kind of ambivalent reaction is definitely in the minority:
Why does everyone want a taco emoji so bad
— Lauren Lapkus (@laurenlapkus) June 6, 2015
I think one of the biggest first world problems right now is that there is no taco emoji.
— matt opachick (@mattopachick) May 31, 2015
The taco emoji is an issue people have been taking very seriously this last year as more and more emoji updates have been tragically devoid of this crucial piece of Mexican street food. Though some may argue this omission has been in service of more meaningful items like racially diverse characters and same-sex couples, it’s a little harder to argue considering there’s also already a whole section of different coloured notebooks and four separate emojis to fully illustrate the available 90-degree angles of a mailbox flag.
We have 12 train emojis, 9 kinds of books, 4 graphs, 3 types of rice and a fucking fax machine, BUT THERE'S NO TACO EMOJI??? #outraged
— The Fat Jew (@FATJEW) April 8, 2015
After considerable public outcry, Taco Bell started a Change.org petition in support of the emoji which now has more than 32,000 supporters. A company even made an app with the sole function of sending a picture of a taco to your friends. It declared itself “the simplest and most efficient way to text a taco to anyone in the world” because apparently the owners had never heard of regular picture messages.
For whatever reason, this is a big deal:
#AskPOTUS where is the taco emoji
— darth!™ (@darth) May 28, 2015
Now, after first teasing people with the idea last November, Emojipedia have confirmed it: the taco has been approved as part of the official list of items for Unicode 8, the first hurdle for any fledgling emoji. Importantly, you won’t be seeing it on your phone until it’s officially picked up by iOS or Android but — as they presumably don’t want an all-out revolt on their hands — there’s little reason why they wouldn’t.
If you don’t give a single shit about the taco emoji and just read all that to weep at the dire state of humanity, it also came with 37 buddies! These include a unicorn, a wedge of cheese, and a maniacal smiley face with cash hanging out of its mouth. I don’t know if that makes things any better, but here’s the full list:
– Burrito
– Hot Dog
– Popcorn
– Turkey
– Table Tennis Paddle And Ball
– Amphora
– Crab
– Scorpion
– Kaaba
– Mosque