Sloth, yo-yo, oyster: The secret meanings behind the new emojis

New emojis are coming to your iPhone and inclusion is high on the agenda 
The new emojis to grace your group chats this year
Emojipedia

Emojis are designed to be an inclusive alphabet, so their latest iteration is an overdue evolution. The promise of wheelchair, hearing aid, walking canes, guide dogs and prosthetic limb stickers arriving on your smartphone screen later this year is undeniably exciting.

There’s a lot of consideration given to each new patch (there’s a plaster in the newest iteration). “This is the first time that an emoji featuring multiple people has included skin tone support”, says Jeremy Burge, Chief Emoji Officer at Emojipedia, the curator co-responsible for the alphabet’s 12.0 update.

“With the people holding hands 70 different combinations are required to cover all the couples with mix skin tones. One missing feature is giving families skin tone support too. While the couples use 70 emojis to support skin tones, 4,225 family emojis would be needed if each family member could have a different skin tone. So far this has proven too much to add.

Flamingo, sloth and orang-utan lovers, your backs are covered too among the 230 new characters coming soon to your phone’s keyboard. Yet it’s the euphemistically inclined who will be tapping out hand-rubbing emojis most gleefully.

For the joy of emojis not expressing yourself literally, but in devising your own, inventive codes. And the update offers fresh material. A sloth is obvious - tardy, unlikely to do anything in a hurry - but other symbols have already piqued the public imagination.

“Since publishing our sample images this week, the biggest response has been for the pinching hand, and in particular the way that it might be used in response to unsolicited photos of mens genitals,” says Burge. “While the gesture is only intended to represent a small amount of something, in some contexts the use of this to imply a small penis has not gone unnoticed by the majority of those providing feedback online.”

So that’s that. Whether you see this latest rollout as a historic step in the development of humanity’s universal language, or a useful shorthand to trash-talk your deskmates, here is a representative guide to the forthcoming additions to the emoji lexicon.

 Decoding the emojis: The new lexicon

Garlic: a strong-smelling pungent-tasting bulb, used as a flavouring in cooking and in herbal medicine.  

Alt-meaning: a ward against the vampire in your WhatsApp group.

Waffle: a crenulated cake made from batter. 

Alt-meaning: someone is talking nonsense. 

Skunk: a small American musteline animal, typically with a black-and-white coat and a squirrel-like tail. 

Alt-meaning: please apply deodorant liberally. 

Hi-vis: high-visibility vest, orange clothing worn that has highly reflective properties or a colour that is easily discernible from any background. 

Alt-meaning: Vive les gilets jaunes. 

Falafel: deep-fried ground chickpea ball.

Alt-meaning: you’re hungover and are about to hang out with a vegan friend.

Yawning face: the common symptom of tiredness.

Alt-meaning: chronically bored.

Oyster: a salt-water bivalve mollusc that is a culinary delicacy.

Alt-meaning: think about what it looks like and the fact that there are no vagina emojis.

Yo-yo: a toy consisting of a reel wound with a length of string. 

Alt-meaning: this guy’s all over the place. 

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