Is it finally time for a drone emoji? You can help make it happen

Drones have done a lot for this world. Even though we don’t have the widespread drone deliveries that Jeff Bezos kind of promised, drones deserve some sort of credit. Drones protect endangered animals. They’re helping plant trees. They’ve made agricultural operations more efficient. They’re even helping in the fight to control the coronavirus outbreak.

So it only makes sense that there is a drone emoji, right?

DroneUp, a Virginia-based company that provides drone services for commercial industries and public sector organizations including contracting out pilots, providing aerial data collection, offering training, and program integration, took on a little side project: submitting plans for a drone emoji.

DroneUp in March submitted an official proposal to the Unicode Consortium for the inclusion of a drone emoji in the release of
Emoji 14.0.

Here’s what that emoji might look like:

The Unicode Consortium is the governing body that sets global coding standards.

And while there are tech, stem and flight focused emojis such as a satellite, rocket, flying saucer, there has never been a drone. Team Drone Girl often uses a helicopter + video game controller as a substitute for a drone.

To help convince the Unicode Consortium that it’s a worthwhile cause, DroneUp also released a petition on Change.org (and they want you to sign it if you also want a drone emoji).

While getting oodles of signatures on Change.org doesn’t necessarily automatically grant a drone emoji, there does seem to be an impact. Taco Bell once created a Change.org petition for a taco emoji that received more than 32,000 signatures. And in October 2015, the taco became an official emoji.

The next version of emojis, version 14.0 of the Unicode Standard, is scheduled to be released in September 2021 (it was originally set for March 2021, but was delayed due to coronavirus-related disruptions). A version 13 has already been announced, but won’t arrive on mobile phones until around September 2020. That version has 55 new emoji code points including a Smiling Face with Tear, Accordion, Bubble Tea and Ninja.

As far as what comes after that (including a potential drone emoji), he Emoji Subcommittee is accepting new emoji character proposals for Emoji 14.0 between June 15, 2020 and Sept. 1, 2020.

So start getting those signatures, so DroneUp can send their proposal in — and you can have a drone emoji come September 2021.