'Bacon' and 'Drooling Face' Are Among the 38 New Emojis Arriving Next Year The additions serve to honor popular requests as well as fill existing gaps.
By Geoff Weiss
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If you haven't already familiarized yourself with the 300 new emoji that debuted last month -- including a more racially diverse array of hands and faces -- there's still time to brush up before yet another batch of characters arrives in June 2016.
Unicode, a nonprofit organization that governs the representation of text in software products, has announced the addition of 38 new emoji, including "drooling face,' "hand with first and index finger crossed,' "shrug,' "wilted flower,' "avocado' and more. Check out the full list here.
In some cases, the additions serve to equalize a "missing gender pair," as Unicode puts it. A "man dancing' will now complement the ever-popular sashaying woman, for instance, as "Mother Christmas' will accompany Santa and the crowned princess emoji will finally get her "prince.'
Other emojis are being added to meet demand. A "selfie' emoji, which shows a hand taking a selfie, has been requested by many top tech media outlets, Unicode noted, and is also the subject of hundreds of millions of Google searches.
Emojis may be fun and games, but Unicode takes its mission seriously. For three new bird emojis, including "eagle,' "duck' and "owl,' the organization said it consulted with the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology to study bird-sighting data and determine the most desired species.
Related: For the First Time, an Emoji Has Been Named the Most Popular Word of the Year
