The Unicode Consortium made the taco lovers of the world jump for joy when they included the almighty taco emoji — previously believed to be mythical — on their list of New Emoji Candidates for Unicode 8.0. I've got more good news, too: We're edging closer and closer to this magnificent iMessage image becoming a reality, thanks to Taco Bell's #TacoEmoji campaign. Of course Taco Bell would support the taco emoji, right? If not them, who else?
Taco Bell started a Change.org petition shortly after Unicode made the New Emoji Candidates announcement; since then, it's garnered over 26,000 signatures, putting it a mere 8,170 away from attaining its goal. It makes a convincing argument: "Why do pizza and hamburger lovers get an emoji but taco lovers don't?" Taco Bell plaintively asks. "Here's a better question: Why do we need four different types of mailboxes? Or 25 different types of clocks? Or a VCR tape and floppy disk emoji? No one even uses those things anymore." Accurate. Heck, most of us don't even use CDs for data storage anymore; these days, it's all about flash drives. But tacos? Tacos will never go out of style. Ever.
But that's not all Taco Bell has been doing in order to make the taco emoji happen. Their plan of attack is threefold, with the other two sides of it being a Twitter hashtag (#tacoemoji, of course) and... wait for it... a T-shirt. You heard me: There's an official Taco Bell taco emoji shirt. It's simple, plain white and emblazoned with the words "TACO EMOJI" in a clean, black font; it'll also set you back $22.99, but at least it's going to a good cause: According to the Taco Emoji Shirt website (yes, it has its own website), "Taco Bell donates 100 percent of all net profits from the sale of Taco Bell merchandise and the Live Mas Experience to Taco Bell Foundation for Teens." Not too shabby, right?
The shirt has been a big part of of the #tacoemoji hashtag:
But those without the official tee have been coming out to show their support, too:
California Pizza Kitchen has even entered the fray:
And, as one person pointed out, at least there's always this:
Is the campaign ridiculous? Yes. There are obviously much more important emoji for which we also need to be pushing — emoji that celebrate diversity of all kinds, for example. When it comes to things we file under "I NEED DIS" versus things we actually need, the taco emoji fits the former category, while a set of diverse emoji fit the latter one. But for all its ridiculousness, the taco emoji campaign is still fun. There's no word on precisely when the new Unicode emoji will be officially confirmed; we know it'll be sometime in 2015, though, so keep your fingers crossed. #Tacoemoji all the way, baby.
Images: JeffreyWW/Flickr; Change.org; Giphy
