This New Emoji Proposal Addresses A Longstanding Complaint

There's one small thing about emoji that has always bugged me: If you look carefully, certain emoji look like they're facing the wrong direction. Why, for example, is the swimmer going left or the skier headed down a presumably leftward facing slope, when the volleyball player is ready to punt their ball to the right? These inconsistencies in directionality can be found throughout the sports themed and transportation emoji, among other categories.

Now, Unicode is considering a way to appease those of us who have long suffered when texting the "backwards" left-facing runner. This week, a proposed update suggests sequences that would allow users to flip an emoji's direction. According to Emojipedia, this is an oft-requested feature, but in order for it to come to phones, vendors such as Apple, Samsung, as others who distribute emoji would need to support the new sequences.

In addition to these proposed changes, Unicode also released its beta list of new emoji that could grace your phones if approved in 2018. Among the candidates are five new faces (smiling face with three hearts, hot face, cold face, partying face, woozy face, and pleading face), eleven new animals and bugs (raccoon, llama, hippopotamus, kangaroo, badger, peacock, parrot, swan, lobster, microbe, and mosquito), six new foods (mango, leafy green, bagel, salt, moon cake, and cupcake), two new people (superhero and super villain), and new hairstyles (curly hair and bald head).

Redheads will also be happy to know that the long-awaited red-haired man and woman emoji are still in the running. However, the ok face, sad pile of poo, and question-mark face have been cut from the list of draft candidates.

According to Unicode, the final list of approved characters for 2018 will be decided in January and announced in March. In the meantime, check out all the possible winners here.