Top Emoji Requests 2019
Earlier this month 230 new emojis were approved for release in 2019; but what about all the other requests?
The number one emoji wanted by Emojipedia users is “happy tears”: an emoji to show a sense of being proud or emotional in a happy way. Crying with a smile but certainly not laughing.
Another popular request which featured in the 2018 and 2017 top emoji lists is a salute.
With a new white heart emoji coming out this year (a popular request in past years), the demand is now on for a pink heart emoji.
Hearts are always popular, and some of our most requested in all shapes and sizes. Trailing a pink heart are requests for a pale blue heart, rainbow heart, hands in the shape of a heart as well as an index finger and thumb twisted to form a small heart.
Other popular requests in the past twelve months have been for all manner of flags, as well as the return of classic smileys from other platforms or older iOS releases.
In no particular order, here is a compilation of top requests from Emojipedia readers in the past twelve months.
Smileys and Gestures
- Touched / proud / emotional face (a smiling face with a single tear / aka "happy tears")
- Shy / bashful face
- Grimacing Face With Smiling Eyes (as seen on iOS prior to 2017)
- Sad Cowboy Hat Face ("sad yeehaw")
- Ninja (now shortlisted for 2020)
- Saluting Face (or person in the military)
- Fingers together ("why you no")
- Heart Hands
- Finger Heart
People
- Black families (and to a lesser extent, families with other skin tones or a mix of skin tones)
- People with white skin and brown hair
- Red hair option for all people (see the potential challenges for this)
- Woman in Tuxedo (already supported by Twitter)
- Man holding a baby (often the breastfeeding emoji is assumed to be a woman holding a baby instead of breastfeeding)
Accessibility
- Person With Crutches
- Person With Cane
Food and Drink
- Bean
- Blackberry
- Bubble Tea (shortlisted for 2020)
- White Wine
- Slime
- BBQ / Grill
- Lime
- Durian
Animals
- Honey Badger
- Triceratops
- Black Cat
Sport / Activities
- Clarinet
- Flute
- Disco Ball
Objects
- Toothbrush
Transport
- Drone
- Scenes (countryside / hills)
- Tumbleweed
- More planets
Symbols
- Pink Heart
- Pale Blue Heart
- Bitcoin
- WiFi
- "No cars" (to pair with 🚷🚳)
Flags
- Aboriginal Australian
- Bisexual
- Bretagne
- Catalonia
- Kurdistan
- Native American Tribes
- NATO
- Northern Ireland
- Pan-Africa
- Texas
- Tibet
- Torres Strait Islander
- Transgender (the pink and blue design)
Already Approved
Last year published a similar list of top emoji requests for 2018 which reported a number of entries that went on to be approved as part of Emoji 12.0. These include:
Context
One difficult part of gathering emoji requests is that people often feel passionately about an emoji in a disproportionate way to how often an emoji might be used.
There may be no lobbying effort to have a waffle emoji approved, yet chances are it would be used a lot more than a NATO flag which has many people trying to make the case for its popularity.
Additionally, a number of examples in this list are wider than the scope of most emoji keyboards at present.
While this list provides an insight into the requests Emojipedia has received in the past year, the Unicode Consortium is the body reponsible for approving new emojis and not Emojipedia.
Those wishing to formally propose an emoji can do so by checking the emoji selection factors and submitting a proposal.
It should be noted that at the time of writing, the 2019 emoji additions haven't come to any major platforms. Many top requests are for emojis already approved but not yet on devices.
We'll check back next year to see which of these, if any, make the final cut for 2020.