Laura Ustick, general manager of Superdawg Drive-In in Illinois, is hungry for a new emoji.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Ustick wants a hot dog emoji to be available across various social media outlets.
“People are demanding a hot-dog emoji,” Ustick said. “It’s a slight against the hot-dog community.”
These fun Japanese icons are growing in popularity — even the White House has used them on Twitter. The U.S. Library of Congress added “Emoji Dick,” a translation of “Moby-Dick” into emojis to their collection as well. Back in December, new emoji art was proposed at a design show in New York City. Creative additions, such as “emojitracker.com” that shows icon popularity on Twitter, and “Emoji Wallpaper” excited users.
Ustick petitioned President Barack Obama and Shigetaka Kurita, an emoji creator in hopes to use “the power of the masses” to create the symbol.
She also is making a plea to food enthusiasts on Twitter with #HotDogEmoji and posting similar content using Facebook memes.
Ustick continued by forming the Hot Dog Emoji Coalition to gain support.
“A hot-dog emoji would stand for so much more than one word,” Paul May, a video editor and local restaurant worker, told The Wall Street Journal.”It basically would denote something that is inherently good.”
Ustick is not the only one wanting to update the icons. Other fans are hoping for whimsical creatures like unicorns and novelties like cupcakes to join the list of emojis.
They will have to catch the attention of the Unicode Consortium, which was formed in 1980s to standardize coding. Mark Davis, co-founder, told WSJ that the consortium took control from the Japanese after difficulties with email.
Davis said the emojis are formed from the previously existing Japanese icons.
With the approval of the consortium emojis then are passed to technology companies who decide what to include on their specific operating system.
Also, DoSomething.org is asking Apple for more diversity within the emoji keyboard selection. They have 4,000 signatures of the 10,000 they hope to acquire on their petition.
“There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set and we have been working closely with the Unicode Consortium in an effort to update the standard,” an Apple Spokesperson said.
As these ideas circulate, many are asking the same questions Davis is: “[W]hat do you then want with the hot dog? Would we do one with ketchup or without?”
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