Lobster emoji: Difference between revisions

 

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[[Category:LGBTQ symbols]]

[[Category:LGBTQ symbols]]

[[Category:Fictional lobsters and crayfish|emoji]]

[[Category:Fictional lobsters and crayfish|emoji]]

[[Category:Symbols introduced in the 2010s]]

[[Category:2010s in Internet culture]]

[[Category:2010s in Internet culture]]

[[Category:Crustaceans in culture]]

[[Category:Crustaceans in culture]]

Emoji added to Unicode in 2018

Lobster (U+1F99E 🦞 LOBSTER) is an emoji that was added to Unicode in 2018, depicting a lobster. It was first announced as a candidate addition to Unicode in 2017, prompting lobbying from people frustrated at the small number of crustacean emojis, including a petition by Maine businessman Luke Holden and a letter from U.S. Senator Angus King of Maine. The Unicode Consortium announced in February 2018 that they would add Lobster to its list as a part of Unicode 11.0; the draft design, released on Emojipedia, was redone after users pointed out it was missing two legs. The emoji was used by transgender rights activists to symbolize being transgender, partly because of the gynandromorphism that occurs in lobsters and partly to campaign for a transgender flag emoji.

In August 2017, the Unicode Consortium announced a list of 67 candidates that could potentially become standard emojis the following year. Among them was a candidate lobster, which was noticed by Maine businessman Luke Holden, founder of the restaurant chain Luke’s Lobsters. Holden created a petition on Change.org to “Make the Lobster Emoji Happen”, which attracted 1,500 signatures in the first day;^[2] people were frustrated that at the time, the only crustacean emojis available were the crab and shrimp emojis.^[3] U.S. Senator Angus King of Maine wrote to the Unicode Consortium the next month^[4] to support the push for a lobster emoji, observing that there were more lobster-related queries in Internet traffic data than for crabs.^[5] He also observed that lobster was Maine’s largest export; the state had exported $382 million in lobsters the previous year ($500.00 million in ).^[6]

The Consortium announced in February 2018 that they would add Lobster, alongside 156 other emojis, as part of Unicode 11.0.^[7] Users on Twitter pointed out that the draft design, which was created by Emojipedia and published on Unicode’s website, had two legs missing and a malformed tail; the design on the Change.org petition had all ten legs, including the claws. Within the month, Emojipedia released an updated design for Lobster, which corrected the anatomical mistakes.^[8][9] An article published in Popular Science criticized the reaction to the initial design, arguing that emojis should be designed with their eventual use in mind, not anatomical accuracy; the article also pointed out that most users would not see either design, since different platforms implement their own designs of the emojis on Unicode’s list, while Unicode just ensures cross-platform compatibility.^[10]

The lobster emoji has been used by transgender communities as self-representation. In 2018, activist Charlie Craggs began a Change.org petition asking for the Unicode Consortium to add a transgender flag emoji to the Unicode Standard.^[11][12] Referring to the “frustration and confusion” of not being able to express their identities, Craggs and other activists began using the lobster emoji in its place, “hijacking the lobster” as a symbol for the transgender community with the hashtag #ClawsOutForTrans.^[12][13][14] In a video describing the petition, Craggs stated that lobsters were selected in part because of their gynandromorphism.^[12][15] Some in the transgender community also pointed to a feeling of unfairness that Unicode was not representing trans people, but responded to lobbying for a lobster emoji.^[3] Craggs echoed that sentiment, commenting: “Surely we deserve the same rights you have afforded crustaceans?”.^[16]

Reactions to the transgender community’s use of the lobster emoji were varied. Luke Holden, who created the original petition for a lobster emoji, welcomed its use, but Matt Moonen of EqualityMaine stated that he “would be surprised if [such use] caught on” in Maine.^[11] Writing for Out, Harron Walker described feeling “amused but mostly just confused” about such use, but noted its increased popularity in Europe compared to North America.^[17] In a 2019 analysis, Elena Giannoulis and Lukas R. A. Wilde pointed to the lobster emoji’s use by the transgender community as an example of the broader movement of cultural representation through emoji in online communication.^[18]: 5

The emoji also gained use as a standalone verb meaning ‘to kill [oneself]’ among Brazilian Portuguese speakers on social media, after a viral video circulated of a lobster seemingly committing suicide by jumping into boiling oil. According to an article in Glossa, one speaker relayed that the emoji was pronounced lagostar, the verb form of ‘lobster’, when spoken aloud.^[19]

• The dictionary definition of 🦞 at Wiktionary
• Media related to U+1F99E at Wikimedia Commons