Butter emoji proposed for new emoji release

Authors Lisa-Maria Neuderty and Jennifer 8. Lee submitted a convincing document to include the emoji after much social media interest and even a Change.org petition.

The butter emoji would join an already diverse selection of dairy items such as cheese and milk. Arguably, the symbol already exists as part of the pancake emoji symbol, which features a tiny knob of butter on the uppermost pancake.

The proposal starts with the history of butter and it’s wide variety of uses in the culinary world - the file then digs down into an impressive range of search and trend data. While Google Trends suggests that cheese and milk are more popular, a comparison of other food emojis finds butter the far more popular option.

And when compared to other cooking fats like canola oil, olive oil and margarine, butter is by far the most searched about topic.

The suggested design of the emoji would feature a stick of butter in a traditional butter dish.

It’s expected that the butter emoji would be used heavily by users interested in food and offer a wide variety of sequencing options. For example, the simple peanut emoji next to butter could indicate peanut butter. When combined with other foods such as meats or pastries, the emoji could highlight the richness of the food.

The proposal rounds up highlighting major user interest; for example, a Change.org position currently stands at 180 signatures while Twitter users have creatively coined the hashtag #butteremoji.

The filing concludes by detailing any current competition when compared to other emojis, with the proposal suggesting no food currently incapable of replicating butter.

The Unicode Consortium currently have much to think about with this proposal and recent others like the ballet emoji and new animal emojis.