Every since the rise of smartphones, emojis have given users the ability to express themselves in a number of ways. Whether it's capturing one's emotions or describing who they are, emojis helps us do that through text messages and tweets. While there are a lot of emojis that cater to a wide audience, some groups and cultures have been left out. Luckily, that's about to change in a meaningful way in 2019. According to a report by Emojipedia, "the final emoji list for 2019 has now been approved by the Unicode Consortium and includes a total of 230 new emojis coming to major platforms this year."
The outlet adds that "additions include previously drafted candidates such as a Flamingo, Otter, Guide Dog... Waffle, Hindu Temple, Sari, Sloth, and Mate." However, the biggest change has to be accessibility. Prosthetics, Hearing Aids, Wheelchairs, and much more will be part of this expansion. Existing emojis curiously lack representation for this important and diverse group, so it's great to see that the Unicode Consortium approved them. You can view all of them below.
New emojis will come to iOS, Android, Windows, various messengers like WhatsApp, and web platforms like Twitter and Facebook throughout 2019. However, keep in mind that their appearance and release dates will vary from platform to platform. This may cause some issues if, for example, an iOS device gets these emojis before Android.
Hopefully in the future even more groups, cultures, and religions will be represented in emojis. If you feel that a particular emoji should be included, make sure your voice is heard by reaching out to the Unicode Consortium with a proposal.
