Here is all the new emoji being rolled out this year

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We all love sending emoji instead of real words nowadays, but they’ve not been that inclusive (unless you’re white and able-bodied). That’s slowly changed, however, and now another 50 or so emoji are being added to the standard set by the Unicode Consortium, many of which are descriptive symbols for the disability community.

That includes things like wheelchairs, people with hearing difficulties, and people with vision problems. Oh, and a waffle emoji, because why did it take this long?

Over 50 emoji are being added to the standard set in 2019

Every update since 2014 has brought emoji one step closer to true inclusivity.

Skin color was added in 2015, women got represented more in 2016, 2017 brought gender inclusivity, hair emoji in 2018, and now in 2019, we’ve got emojis representing a range of people with disability. That set was suggested by Apple last year, so it’s good to see the Unicode Consortium taking industry suggestions seriously.

Other new emoji include:

• New ways to show couples, including multiracial hand-holding, and gender-inclusive couples
• A bunch of new animals, like the otter, skunk, flamingo, and sloth
• A waffle emoji (finally), and some butter to go with it
• An often-requested white heart

Head on over to Emojipedia if you want to check out the whole list.

Glad to see more symbols coming to a phone or computer near you? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.