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This year, Apple came out with eight life-changing new emojis in the iOS 18 update, seven of which I will be focusing on: the ambiguous root vegetable, the bare tree, the fingerprint, the paint splatter, the harp, the shovel, and the user-favorite sunken eye emoji. After getting used to each emoji, I can safely say that their introduction has been truly revolutionary to my texting lifestyle. Let’s look into what makes each of these emojis useful to the average emoticon user.
#1: The Ambiguous Root Vegetable
This emoji might be my personal favorite purely because of how mysterious it is. Is it a beet or a turnip? But given the color of this peculiar emoji, and due to the fact that this is indeed a Radish article, I’m leaning towards it being a radish. Nonetheless, its versatility leaves someone with endless possibilities. I myself have been able to use this emoji to express all three vegetables in different scenarios when needed.
#2: The Bare Tree
In case you were frustrated that only trees with leaves were available, look no further with the arrival of this emoji. Need to tell your friends to meet you by the tree, no not that tree with the leaves, the leafless one with the hole in the center? Well, this emoji is just that, depicting four main naked branches and an ominous dark hole smack dab in the middle of the oddly shaped trunk.
#3: The Fingerprint
Detectives around the world are thanking the heavens with this Unicode introduction. The fingerprint has cut down on the time it takes to solve an investigation by an average of three hours because now detectives can message their partners this emoji when ordering them what evidence to gather. It really eliminates the chance of any miscommunications with how direct it is.
#4: The Paint Splatter
This new emoji was chosen to be, out of all colors, purple. I cannot say I’ve recently encountered any splatters of light purple paint or slime or whatever this emoji represents. But I think that it might be truly beneficial for someone who will in the future. It simply takes out of the words needed to explain a purple accident and replaces it with the emoji in times of dire need.
#5: The Harp
As a band member, I feel truly touched by the addition of the harp. The recognition of this melodious instrument is well overdue, and it feels good to know harpists are finally getting the respect that they deserve. Though the catalog is still missing my own instrument, the clarinet, one can only hold out hope that eventually they, too, will be honored with an emoji. I can honestly say I did not expect harpists to achieve this milestone before me.
#6: The Shovel
Last year when texting about gardening, I scrolled endlessly, trying to find the shovel emoji to accompany my flower emoji. To my dismay, there was neither a watering can emoji nor a shovel emoji. I unfortunately had to supply my text with the words “shovel” and “watering can”, which just took the effect I was going for away from the text. But this year, I was able to converse about gardening with most of the emojis I needed. Still waiting on the watering can.
#7: The sunken eyes emoji:
As I mentioned before, this emoji might just be a new user favorite due to some of its features that make it stand out from the others. It is simply one of the most, and if not the most, human-like emoji. The inspiration of the heavy eye bags likely stems from the faces of Radnor AP students after long hours of studying in the days leading up to their exams. But the grim face can soon be extended to all Radnor students as they gear up to start studying for finals.
Overall, the addition of these new emojis has been truly revolutionary. Never before have emojis had this much of an impact on Apple users. The introduction of super specific emojis, like the wonderful purple paint splatter or spooky bare tree, will cut down on the time needed to type the actual words out. However, this raises the question, will the entire English language be replaced by these oddly specific emojis? Only time (and more iOS updates) will tell…
