Today’s the day, folks. The Unicode Consortium – overlords of how you pictorially express yourself on Instagram – have unleashed Unicode 8.0, the new standard for characters and emoji across all platforms.
According to Unicode, 8.0 “adds a total of 7,716 characters, encompassing six new scripts and many new symbols, as well as character additions to several existing scripts.” But it’s the emoji you’re interested in, of course.
8.0 includes 37 new emoji – including the long-awaited taco emoji. You know, the one Taco Bell petitioned to have happen.
Other new emoji in 8.0 include …
- burrito
- bottle with popping cork
- cheese wedge
- hot dog
- unicorn face
- face with rolling eyes
- zipper-mouth face
- lion face
- menorah with nine branches
You can check out all of them over at Emojipedia.
Though 8.0 goes into effect today, you won’t see the taco emoji on your iPhone quite yet. OS makers like Apple and Android still need to to adopt and implement the new standard. You can expect to see the new emoji pop up on your devices later this year (iOS 9, most likely).
Though Unicode 8.0 is only being made official today, we already know what Unicode 9.0 has in store for us in terms of new emoji. That’ll include a new “selfie” emoji, a pregnant woman, and a cucumber.
But for now, it’s all about the taco. All hail the taco emoji.