The sandal giant is bummed that despite the emoji keyboard’s 1,273 icons, the humble flip flop continues to be left out. Photo: REEF
Here’s a super millennial thought: if you were shopping with friends right now and someone spotted you cash to buy flip flops, you wouldn’t be able to use a flip flop emoji when you hit them back on Venmo.
For as long as emojis have been a thing (apparently, since 1997), and despite Hollywood making a very terrible animated film about them, there continue to be everyday objects that for one reason or another have not been included in the now 1,273 character emoji keyboard. Case in point: the humble flip flop – or, according to Emojipedia, the “thong sandal.” Sandal titan REEF aims to change that.
In a Wednesday press release, the Carlsbad-based footwear giant explained they were in the midst of petitioning the Unicode Committee, the organization that governs what is and is not included in the emoji keyboard, to add a flip flop emoji to smartphones everywhere in 2020. If it moves forward it’ll look something like this:
“At REEF, our brand purpose is to unite the world around the fun, freedom, and spirit of the beach,” the release reads. “For us, the sandal is the ultimate vehicle to tapping into that freedom, that is why we are fighting to get it added to the world emoji keyboard for 2020.”
The release goes on to argue that the size of the global flip flop market – $7 billion worldwide and $1.5 billion in the U.S. according to NPD Group – it only makes sense there be an emoji for them.
According to Emojipedia, the flip flop (aka “thong sandal”) is one of 54 proposed emojis to add to next year’s updated keyboard. Other proposals include a dodo bird, a mammoth, bubble tea, and a ninja.
On its website, Unicode explains that emoji proposals are considered at its quarterly meetings and from provisional candidacy to actual publication in the newest keyboard the process can take up to one year.
