14 Food Emojis That Have Caused Controversies

Smartphone users communicate with emojis all the time. Much more advanced than the original 1997 emoji collection that had only 90 images, the modern emoji keyboard includes pictures of diverse families, cute animals, and an endless amount of food emojis. Nowadays, you hardly even need to use real words in your text messages if you have a good grasp on the alternate picture language. Why type out, “I love you” if you can just send over the heart eyes emoji? The mini-pictures are more expedient and, occasionally, more expressive.

There are, however, certain images the emoji developers just can’t get right.

Food emojis, in particular, can either be perfect (like the French fry emoji that looks like it came straight from a McDonald’s menu), or they can be super inaccurate. And, of course, the internet loves to roast the ones that fall short.

Some food emoji controversies even forced the emoticon creators at Unicode to revamp certain images.

The collection is constantly changing to be more inclusive, but some failed food emojis are just impossible to forget. Even if you didn’t initially notice which emoji vegetable looks somewhat phallic, for example, you certainly know now.

The following emojis will truly make you wonder what those developers were thinking.

1. Apple’s Bagel

Apple users were so saddened by the lack of topping on Apple’s bagel emoji that Apple recently caved and announced it would put cream cheese on the updated bagel emoji via the new iOS 12.1 update.

Cream cheese giant Philadelphia even got in on the fight, organizing a petition to put schmear on the naked bagel.

The company didn’t get their goal of 30,000 signatures, but 1,200 cream cheese lovers signed the petition and got their wish.

2. Google’s Cheeseburger

I think we need to have a discussion about how Google's burger emoji is placing the cheese underneath the burger, while Apple puts it on top pic.twitter.com/PgXmCkY3Yc

— Thomas Baekdal (@baekdal) October 28, 2017

When the above tweet — which drew attention to the fact that Google put the slice of cheese under the burger (like, wtf) — went viral, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai‏ said he would bring it up in a Monday meeting to poll the office to see which burger-building method reigned supreme. Google eventually righted its wrongdoing — and thank goodness for that.

3. The Phallic Eggplant

The famous eggplant emoji has become synonymous with “penis.” Condom company Durex even uses it in their advertising. The use of the eggplant emoji became so problematic that Instagram actually banned the eggplant emoji in 2015 after dudes started posting borderline NSFW content strategically using the eggplant emoji.

4. The Banana

bananas are this nations backbone 🍌

— lupita (@loopytarantino) April 23, 2019

Yes, the banana emoji can be, and has been, used in lieu of the eggplant to ahem…resemble a certain…ahem…thing. Some Instagram users were actually upset that Instagram forbid the eggplant emoji from being used on the platform, but allowed the banana to have free rein. But hey, the eggplant has simply risen above the banana, and that is just fact.

5. Facebook’s “Feeling Fat” Emoji

The case against Facebook's 'feeling fat' emoji wins | MSNBC http://t.co/1h45EnuvhS #TonyoList pic.twitter.com/FneXoMbPyK

— Tonyo Cruz (@tonyocruz) March 11, 2015

When Facebook hopped on the emoji bandwagon, they released a “feeling fat” emoji in 2015. Users were so put off by the embarrassedly stuffed smiley, feminist group Endangered Bodies put together a petition to take the emoji off the list and received over 16,000 signatures. The hashtag #FatIsNotAFeeling went viral and Facebook ultimately took the emoji down.

6. Apple’s Chinese Food Takeout Box

When Apple teased the new Chinese food takeout box emoji in 2017, food blogger Ming-Cheau Lin pointed out that the chopsticks sticking out of the top of the box represented death. She said so because the chopsticks’ placement looks more like incense sticks used in Chinese culture to honor the dead.

Furthermore, Lin said that leaving chopsticks sticking out of food like that is completely disrespectful.

Unfortunately, after the box design was submitted, it was out of the artist’s hands to change the look.

7. The Taco Emoji

Note how Apple is the only major player using an authentic mexican taco for the taco (🌮) emoji and not the hard shell piece of crap gringos call tacos. https://t.co/mghdgUzDqD I think this is a bigger deal than the Bagel emoji by an order of magnitude.

— @soska@octodon.social (@soska) October 17, 2018

Although the taco emoji has come to be used as a sexual symbol of sorts, there’s actually a more pressing controversy surrounding it. When Taco Bell — yes, Taco Bell — created and won their petition to get a taco emoji in 2014, the world was given a hard shell taco:

“[T]he stuff of American family taco [night],” as MUNCHIES’ José R. Ralat wrote in 2016.

Many argued that it should have been a traditional Mexican soft taco, or that they at least should have given users taco options. A 2016 Apple update softened up the shell, but taco lovers still want more.

8. Apple’s Peach

noooooo they're changing the peach emoji pic.twitter.com/CmHkef9MlM

— alix 🌼🌸 (@freckledbutt) November 1, 2016

Pre-2016, Apple’s peach emoji looked more like a butt than a piece of fruit. So obviously, emoji users used the peach to symbolize a butt. Apple tried to thwart the sexualization of its innocent emojis in its iOS 10.2, but we were already well-versed in emoji lingo by then. The update didn’t stop us from using it as a butt.

9. The Lobster Emoji

New Lobster Emoji Gets Updated After Complaints From Maine — https://t.co/6Nag9XzaXf pic.twitter.com/dZFQCzCWMS

— Mental Floss (@mental_floss) February 23, 2018

Unicode Consortium, the company responsible for designing and reshaping emojis, was forced to go back to the drawing board with their lobster emoji earlier this year.

Emoji users in Maine (including their Senator) were upset that the existing lobster emoji was missing two of its back legs.

So in order to make the crustacean anatomically correct, Unicode Consortium righted its wrongdoing and put the lobster’s legs where they should be.

The trans community has also been using the lobster emoji as a symbol for their community — since lobsters can display both male and female traits — until a trans pride flag emoji is created. “Emojis are a way for the world to connect, and trans people shouldn’t be left out of the conversation,” wrote an advocacy group in their online petition.

10. Google’s Beer Emoji

After quelling the cheeseburger scandal, Sundar Pichai found it necessary to nip another emoji-related upset in the bud before it, too, went viral. “We fixed it, and we got the cheese right,” Pichai said at Google’s annual developer conference in May 2018, “but as we were working on this, this came to my attention.”

He put a picture of Google’s half-empty beer mug on the screen behind him.

“I don’t even want to tell you the explanation the team gave me as to why the foam was floating above the beer, but we restored the natural laws of physics,” Pichai said. Phew.

11. The Falafel Emoji

Final new Emoji lineup for 2019 includes yo-yo, otter, falafel, and…blood pic.twitter.com/Omv2o7DXff

— Dillip Kumar Murmu (@DillipK40450715) February 6, 2019

In early 2019, the Unicode Consortium released a falafel emoji. Falafel, reportedly a native food to both Israelis and Palestinians, is a fried chickpea-based dish usually served with salads, in sandwiches, or alongside hummus. It’s rarely ever served on its own. So when the first images of the falafel emoji appeared in early February 2019, some falafel lovers were not impressed.

“The falafel emoji look like soot-covered tennis balls, iced sloppily with phlegm,” Jenny Singer wrote for Schmooze.

ITS FALAFEL TIME 🥙 (ps: they have a falafel emoji. Isn’t the world grand)

— IT’S KENNIE AKA “TINDER THANOS" (@KennieJD) June 15, 2018

It appears, however, that the falafel emoji has been tweaked since its initial conception, and that’s probably for the best.

12. Apple’s Paella Emoji

🥘 Shallow Pan of Food https://t.co/yD1boSKmtE

— Botmoji (@botmoji) April 20, 2019

Called “Shallow Pan of Food” in its Unicode listing, Apple’s paella emoji needed some TLC after it was first released in December 2016. The original ingredients pictured in the “shallow pan” were peas, shrimp, and mussels.

Sounds like a great meal, right?

Unfortunately, the ingredients do not match the traditional paella recipe from the dish’s hometown of Valencia, Spain — and Valencia residents were quick to point this out.

Therefore, Apple changed the ingredients in the paella emoji to resemble chicken, lima beans, and green beans.

13. Apple’s Waffle Emoji

Waffle emoji WHEN

— ‎‎‎‎ ‎ jp‎‎ (@jonpauIsmith) April 20, 2019

We recently learned earlier this year that waffle emoji is slated to hit our smartphones in late 2019. It took them long enough, didn’t it? Up until this news flash, people were pissed off. Where the heck is the waffle emoji?

“I think that it is very important that we create a waffle emoji,” Caitlyn Vincent wrote in her Change.org campaign, which garnered 445 supporters.

“Waffles are one of the most popular breakfast foods. I find this unfair and not equal for there to be an egg emoji yet not a waffle emoji.”

In fact, there are well over ten waffle emoji petitions on Change.org alone, perhaps spawned by Netflix’s release of Stranger Things in 2016, in which the main character Eleven has a love affair with Eggo waffles.

14. The Mate Drink Emoji

New Maté Drink emoji approved by Unicode and scheduled for 2019 release soon. Woo Hoo 😉 👏😊👏#Yerba #Mate #MateTea #YerbaTea #YerbaMate #Emoji #YerbaEmoji #MateEmoji #MateDrinkEmoji #Unicode #ChilledMate pic.twitter.com/nsPgr7zMSR

— Chilled Mate Ⓥ (@ChilledMate) February 8, 2019

Similar to the waffle emoji, it took a team of passionate mate drinkers to make the mate emoji happen. Mate, also called mate tea or yerba mate,  is a caffeinated drink made from infusing the shrub yerba mate. As the team, comprised of Argentinian and other South American mate lovers, stated in their 40-page proposal, mate is a favorite drink of influential people like Pope Francis, Lionel Messi, and Barack Obama.

They even submitted a design idea in their proposal.

The mate drink emoji had been proposed before, according to Jennifer Lee, vice-chair of the emoji subcommittee and co-founder of the grassroots organization Emojination, which works toward inclusion in emoji approval, who spoke with Quartzy. “The process basically rewards passion and confidence,” Lee said, which is exactly what happened in this scenario.

The mate emoji will appear in the same drop as the waffle emoji later this year.

Oh, emoji scandals. You keep us young.