AT LAST, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ gets its due.
  • Unicode Consortium
  • AT LAST, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ gets its due.

Today, in great Friday news, we're getting a whole bunch of brand-new emojis! The Unicode Consortium, which is an actual governing body in charge of standardizing our emojis, has submitted 38 new emojis for review, and—WE HOPE!—an eventual public release in June of 2016. That's a long time to wait for emojis, but don't worry! You can see a full list, along with fascinating rationale for their inclusion, plus concept art, here.

Taken together, their names are delightful accidental poetry. A sampling: "nauseated face," "wilted flower," "Mother Christmas," "shrug." Seriously, go read the whole list.

And if you're wondering why this is newsworthy, allow me to direct you to a whole slew of emoji-related projects invading the worlds of art and literature right now. There's Coconut Books, which published a book of emoji poems in translation by Carina Finn and Stephanie Berger, that is truly weird. There are the infamous Cindy Sherman emojis. (And, if you just want to laugh forever, go see Edith Zimmerman's depiction of the first season of True Detective in emoji. It's totally worth it.)

Also of note? Liza Nelson's Emoji IRL. LOL. project, where she posts images of weird real-life portraits of everyday objects copied directly from emojis. "Emojis mean everything and they mean nothing at the same time," Nelson writes on her Tumblr, by way of explanation. "They're really quite stupid. And they're the best thing that ever happened to our generation. They deserve to be observed and worshipped individually. By finding, posing and sculpting emojis in real life I've created a set of shrines to the individual characters. Because somebody had to do it."

ABOVE:From Liza Nelsons EMOJI IRL. LOL.
  • Liza Nelson
  • ABOVE:From Liza Nelson's EMOJI IRL. LOL.

Nelson, I think, hits the emoji-art nail on the head. Emojis are utterly meaningless, but they're also deeply amusing. They're also limited—which is part of why the new emoji release is worth noting—and I'd argue that that limitation makes them a useful medium for art. Creating an artwork through self-imposed constraints isn't new, by any stretch. It goes back to the arbitrary constraints set by the French Oulipo movement, surrealism, and automatic writing. That emoji art is in conversation with these, while being quite superficial and using cartoony icons, makes it especially interesting. It's good to see the palette of possibilities growing.

And if you don't believe me, well, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.