Here’s a Sneak Peak at the Next Batch of Emoji Coming to Your Device

What’s new, beasties? It’s the day of the Emoji world, which means it’s time to watch new emoji (or are it emojis?). In an article on its blog today, the Unicode consortium, the non -profit organization behind the standardized Emoji set through you, you see in all your different devices and applications, has presented its next set of icons and expressions. The group says that there are still “a lot of documents” to do, so they could not hit your phones and tablets before 2026, according to an e-mail from Erik Thompson from Unicode to the line.

But what a lot is: we have a musical instrument. We have a treasure. We have one of these old school cartoons. And of course, we have a cryptide. Although the new emoji has proven to be surprisingly political in the past, this update seems more focused on the pleasures of the crowd, and I would say that it does a good job.

The list below is not all of the final version Unicode 17.0, but that’s what we know so far:

• Trombone

• Treasure chest

• Distorted face

• Hairy creature

• Combat cloud

• Apple core

• Orca

• Ballet dancers

Credit: the unicode consortium

Personally, my favorite is probably the orca (I like a cetacean), but I want to pay particular attention to the “distorted face”. It looks like an extreme selfie .5, but if you look at a quantity of anime, there is a good chance that you have already seen it – it looks a lot like this angle down, Fish eye close up that many directors use to show a character in the middle of a mental breakdown. So you know, use it when the quick place forgets your curly fries or something else.

I should also probably say what we all think: yes, the “hairy creature” is Bigfoot, until installation. I do not know if if there are copyright concerns for a character like this (it should be a public domain, but “Bigfoot” is also a brand name), but this is not the first time that the Unicode consortium has been deliberately vague during the deliberate reference. Emoji goblins, for example, in fact represent a tengu mask, a real part of Japanese culture which itself represents a being of Japanese folklore.

Then there are the “ballet dancers”. We only see one in the overview, but given the way in which emoji have represented different jobs and pastime in the past, we probably have some iterations of this basic design at launch.

In the meantime, the Unicode consortium actually encourages you to send your own proposals for emoji. Know that it can take some time for an idea to be approved and you will first have to go through your own mountain of paperwork.