The sample lobster emoji unveiled Wednesday by the governing body of cute little social media icons is, shall we say, deformed.
And some people are noticing.
The fact that it’s missing two legs has been pointed out by more than one lobster fan. It also appears to have an extra crusher claw, not to mention a tail that is grossly malformed.
But social media critics should take heart. The image that surfaced this week is intended for illustration only, and is not necessarily the one that will show up on smartphones this summer.
The Unicode Consortium, official arbiter of emojis, says on its website that final designs are up to individual vendors such as Adobe and Apple. Unicode’s website also says that designs change and it even asks for suggested improvements.
Unicode did not respond to questions Thursday about the criticisms of its sample emoji, so it’s not clear if the nonprofit organization knows its lobster is malformed, or if it cares.
The proposed image that appears on a digital petition supporting the creation of lobster emoji has the correct number of legs.
Joel Rubin, a Maine native and California resident, pointed out the missing appendages while also congratulating U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine on his successful efforts to land the lobster emoji.
“Hate to pour cold butter on all the excitement, but @PressHerald posted a pic of the emoji and it appears to be missing a set of legs. … Before this turns into a scandal, I advise you to demand a redraw,” he tweeted.
Heather Pixley of Massachusetts also posted tweets calling out the error.
“Dear @unicode THANK YOU SO MUCH for the #lobsteremoji – Could you add two legs?”
There appears to be plenty of time for social media to get its message through to the artists who will create the final versions. On the other hand, no one said emojis have to be anatomically correct. Just try to make your face look like the new woozy face emoji, for example.
And Unicode is not the first to run into trouble with missing lobster legs. The Red Lobster restaurant chain’s logo has a lobster with just eight legs, too.
In fact, it’s such a common mistake that there is even a blog called Lobsters Have Ten Legs that describes itself as “a place to share our frustrations about anatomically incorrect lobster art, toys, apparel and knick-knacks.” It had not yet posted the new emoji as of Thursday afternoon.
Anatomical irregularities were not the only kerfuffle over the emoji Thursday.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., joined in with a tweet that congratulated – and tweaked – King.
“Big win for @SenAngusKing and all of us who love lobster. Though I think we can all agree that lobster (emojis or rolls) are best served Connecticut style – hot with butter.”
Whether it belongs with butter or mayonnaise, the lobster emoji was a hit on social media Thursday, notwithstanding its missing parts.
King’s tweet announcing the emoji had 4,500 likes.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Comments are no longer available on this story