The powers that be at the Unicode Consortium will soon bless us with a brand new crop of emojis. A draft list of semi-finalists awaiting official approval has recently been released, giving the world a sneak preview of emojis yet to come. Perhaps most notably among the collection of new icons likely to grace our phone screens in the coming months is a “Pregnant Man” emoji, which depicts — wait for it — a pregnant man.
The masculine alternative to the traditional “Pregnant Woman” emoji shows a mustachioed icon cradling his stomach in a peaceful, Madonna-like portrait of impending parenthood, and represents the latest in an ongoing push for more inclusive emoji. In recent years, additions to the emoji catalogue have broadened race, gender, sexuality and ability representation with more diverse skin tone and gender offerings, as well as emojis depicting individuals in wheel chairs and prosthetics. In addition to the Pregnant Man emoji, the new slate of potential emoji offerings also includes a gender-neutral “Pregnant Person” icon. Both additions to the growing collection of pregnancy emojis, according to Emojipedia, “recognize that pregnancy is possible for some transgender men and non-binary people.”
While the headline-making pregnant man icon has quickly become the candidate to watch among this forthcoming emoji crop, the rising class of new emojis also includes a number of other dark horse icons that I could see attracting a cult following. Top of that list would be a lip-biting emoji, which is easily the horniest emoji I’ve ever seen. There’s also a disco ball, which seems primed for emoji stardom and frequent appearances in Instagram stories based on the current ’70s revival that’s trending at the moment. There is also: a driver’s license icon, for which we can probably thank Olivia Rodrigo’s influence; some coral, which, according to Emojipedia, “is commonly used as an icon to discuss climate change, given the impact of rising global temperatures on coral reefs”; a glass of spilled water that brings the drama; a melting smiley face that could be used to represent either our collectively unraveling mental health or the very literal meltdown that awaits us all when climate change deals its final blow; some bubbles and three beans, which are pretty cute.
But remember, these emojis are still awaiting final approval from the Unicode Consortium, which I like to imagine as a collection of the world’s most powerful, suit-wearing elites all sitting around a massive boardroom table in their top-secret headquarters in Iceland or something, so don’t get too attached. As Emojipedia warns, “There’s always a remote possibility of a change or removal ahead of September.” The Unicode Consortium giveth and the Unicode Consortium taketh away.
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