NATIONWIDE — A series of new emoji are coming next year with several additions that may help sum up 2020 with no words. 

What You Need To Know

  • 217 new emoji will hit cell phones in early 2021

  • The new set includes seven brand-new emoji and 210 skin tone variant updates

  • Unicode Consortium, the organization responsible for creating new emoji, previously delayed the rollout of new images until 2022

 

217 new emoji will be rolled out in early 2021 for cell phone users worldwide, according to a release from the Unicode Consortium, a non-profit organization responsible for the creation and dissemination of emojis. The rollout includes seven brand-new emojis and an additional 210 skin-tone variants for already existing images. 

Current emoji options only offer the generic yellow skin tone for multi-person and couples images. Unicode’s update will allow users to customize the skin color of both people in the emoji, ensuring future inclusion for interracial relationships.

The new emoji include a heart on fire, a “mending heart” wrapped in bandages, a face exhaling, a face hiding in the clouds, and a face with spiral eyes—appropriate additions for the pandemic year.

Two other new additions are the organization’s first attempt at non-binary emoji. While previously there was only a “man with beard” option, the update includes a “woman with beard” and “person with beard” emoji, the latter being the gender-neutral option. 

Unicode has dubbed the release “Emoji 13.1,” as it is a smaller-scale rollout than the typical emoji updates. The company previously said they were delaying the release of any new emoji until late 2021, but were considering adding “emoji sequences”—i.e. changes to already existing emojis—instead.  

“Under the current circumstances we’ve heard that our contributors have a lot on their plates at the moment and decided it was in the best interests of our volunteers and the organizations that depend on the standard to push out our release date,” said Mark Davis, President of the Consortium, in a statement in April. “This year we simply can’t commit to the same schedule we’ve adhered to in the past.”

Fortunately, the company opted for its smaller-scale update to accommodate the swath of volunteer submissions it received this year.

Cell phone users will have access to the seven new emoji, as well as the updated skin tone variants, as early as January of next year. Unicode’s larger-scale update will be revealed in September 2021, with providers rolling out those emoji to cell phone users in early 2022. 

Interestingly, the company unveiled the mini-rollout before some cell phone providers made the last update available to customers. Google and Samsung only released the 13.0 emoji update, which came out in January of this year, in the past month; Apple’s new emoji support was previewed in July.