We Lost: The Emoji Taco for iOS is Here, and it’s Bullshit
First we advocated for a taco emoji. Having achieved victory, we warily moved on to part 1a: making sure the taco emoji represented an authentic taco and not a Taco Bell™ taco. We were wary of the direction the campaign for an emoji taco had taken because Taco Bell™ had come in at the last second, and fraudulently declared itself the true champion of the emoji taco, even though the primary proponents of such an emoji were Mexicans, and those who love authentic Mexican tacos.
We redoubled our efforts, going so far as to publish an op-ed of sorts in popular online food journal First We Feast which generated tremendous press and online commentary.
Today we learned that our pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
Apple has shown their latest emoji designs in the developer release of iOS 9.1, and it's worse than we could've imagined. Not only is it a Taco Bell™ style taco, it's a pretty much a direct facsimile of a Taco Bell™ taco. Ground beef, check. Shitloads of superfluous lettuce, check. Disgusting orange cheese product, check. Tomatoes that aren't part of a salsa, check.
The iOS taco emoji is a disgrace. While the house style of Apple's emoji is still superior to Android or Firefox (more on that later), their taco is a failure of imagination and of design. The taco is a symbol of Mexico that has been colonized by a designer who didn't bother to research his or her subject in any meaningful way. They have handed a victory to those that believe that demanding an authentic taco is absurd.
Well, shit happens. We lost. At least we weren't advocating for a burrito, which no one bothered to do, because there's no way they could screw that up, right? You know, the Mexican food that has a much more American pedigree?
If the iOS taco is the Titanic of emoji designs, the burrito is the Hindenburg. This "burrito" will live in infamy, as it resembles nothing more than a shitty vegan wrap from a New York City deli.
We call on the designers of Android and other emoji sets to right Apple's wrongs. Design an authentic taco with cilantro and cebolla. Make a burrito that has foil and is a basic tube shape. Have some fucking respect for the original creators of these delicious foods that millions consume every day, and make us all proud of your work.
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