Lobster Emoji 2018: Maine Senator Supports Candidate We Can All Get Behind

By Julia Glum On 9/25/17 at 4:33 PM EDT

GettyImages-52963857 — Independent Senator Angus King, of Maine, wrote a letter Friday to the Unicode Consortium, demanding it add a lobster emoji to its roster. Jodi Hilton/Getty

Here's a cracking good idea: Maine Senator Angus King is pushing for the creation of a lobster emoji to give his state's top export the respect it deserves—and help it fit in with all the other smartphone seafood.

King, an Independent, wants the lobster to be featured in the newest group of official emoji, set to be announced in October, according to the Portland Press Herald. The lobster has already made it on the draft list of candidates but is up against stiff competition from a sad poop icon, a kangaroo, a hippopotamus and a bagel.

"People in Maine—as well as others across the world—understand that the lobster is a culturally and economically important animal," King wrote in a Friday letter to the Unicode Consortium, the group that approves new emoticons. "I respectfully request [a lobster emoji] so that people who fish, process, serve, eat or otherwise admire the lobster can accurately express themselves in emoji form."

The absence of America's beloved crustacean is particularly galling because shrimp, crab, squid, octopus, dolphin, shark and two kinds of whales have their own keyboard symbols.

Mainers like King certainly know lobster: Last year, fishermen in the state harvested some $500 million worth of the bug-like seafood that is sold worldwide. Homarus americanus even became Maine's state crustacean in 2016.

"A lobster emoji ... would complete a set of emoji representing crustaceans commonly consumed as food items, and it would respond to significant public demand," King said. "Neither the existing crab nor shrimp emoji can be effectively used to represent a lobster, which has a distinctively different profile."

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OK, the Maine lobster industry is on a roll. It brings over half a billion dollars (that's with a "b") into the state each year, supports families up and down the coast, and is part of what induces millions of visitors to claw their way through southern New England traffic to get up here every summer. So why is there no lobster emoji? This week, I set out to correct this obvious oversight and wrote to the Unicode Consortium (the folks in charge of creating emojis) asking them to get our local crustacean on the menu. (Maybe it would help if I buttered them up). In fact, lobsters are so important to Maine, it makes me downright ðŸ¦€-y that there's #nolobsteremoji. Yet. #lobster #mainelobster #emoji #coastofmaine
A post shared by Angus King (@anguskingmaine) on Sep 22, 2017 at 2:23pm PDT

King's request followed the creation of a Change.org petition requesting a red lobster emoji be chosen from the 67 candidates the Unicode Consortium has preliminarily selected to debut in 2018. The New York City–based owners of Luke's Lobster are behind the push, with at least one executive vowing to get a lobster tattoo if the restaurant chain generates enough support for the lobster emoji.

As for King's involvement, it was just "a perfect fit," spokesman Jack Faherty said in a statement to Newsweek. His letter was simply "a fun way to highlight the importance of lobster for Maine's culture and economy."

Perhaps, but this is serious business. After all, there's no moose emoji, either. And the moose is Maine's official state animal. Hmmm.

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