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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Conn chapter.

Over 390 emojis were added with the new iOS 13.2. The new bunch range from a selection of food items to more inclusive and people-centric emojis. Without further ado, let’s dive into some specifics you can use!

First, let’s talk about food. Apple added an onion, garlic, waffle, butter, oyster, juice box, mate, ice cube, and even falafel emoji! 

Personally, I’m loving the new food options. I feel like when it comes to food emojis, people don’t use them as much as the face/expressive emojis, but I can see these new ones being good for families. If your family asks what you’d like to eat, you can now respond with: 

Next, Apple added what’s got to be my new favorite expressive emoji ever: Tired? Bored? Not really feeling it? This one’s got you covered.

I think the best thing about the new emojis though is the improved inclusion and diversity. Apple added a gender neutral option for many of their emojis: 

They also now allow people to choose a range of skin tones for more emojis. This applies to many of the career centric ones that didn’t really have this option before, such as the scientist, artist, lawyer, graduate, astronaut, etc. Apple also added a wide range of emojis focused on couples (although they could signify friendships too, I’ll just be referring to it as the couple one here). The couple emoji has girls holding hands, boys holding hands, girls and boys holding hands, and also a gender neutral option! The couples also include a mix of different skin tones, whether they both share the same one or different ones. I think it’s pretty awesome to include such a wide array of different options for people to choose from.

I think one of the most incredible parts of the new update is the accessibility-centric emojis. Emojis pertaining to any disability have not existed prior to this update (which is really unfortunate it took this long to happen), but at least now we finally have representation for more people. These emojis range from ears with hearing aids, deaf representation, wheelchair emojis, mechanical limbs, and more! I think it’s great and also crucial to extend this inclusion to more and more communities and the disabled community deserves to be able to feel just as represented as everyone else. I hope through future updates, more disability-centric emojis can be added, as there are so many more that could be added, and I think it’s important to have disability be part of the movement for more diversity.

The new update also let’s you make a “Memoji” which is a personalized emoji of yourself! I thought it was really fun being able to make my own emoji and send it to my friends and family. Although, I have to admit that the selection options were lacking and could use some more options for people. Still, I loved being able to try to make an emoji through my own efforts, and I liked how mine came out.

Overall, even though emojis are fundamentally just textable cartoons, I think going in the direction of making a wide array of emojis that are representative of all people is a move in the positive direction. Emojis are fun and a way to express yourself, so I think the more diverse and the more array of options- whether that’s through food, people, etc- is an awesome step forward. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by https://burst.shopify.com/@matthew_henry?utm_campaign=photo_credit&utm_content=Picture+of+Texting+on+iPhone+Closeup+-+Free+Stock+Photo&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=credit”>Matthew Henry from https://burst.shopify.com/api-tech?utm_campaign=photo_credit&utm_con…”>Burst

Elisa Shaholli

U Conn '23

Elisa is a freshman planning on double majoring in English Literature and Public Health. When she isn't scouring Homer Babbidge Library for books on Turkish history or disability studies, you can find her jamming out to The Weeknd, trying to learn new languages, or knitting.
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