You might not get excited about new emoji, but they’re actually a pretty big deal.

Do you emoji? If so, you’ll soon have another 157 images to choose from when sending a message. The Unicode Consortium officially released its new emoji for 2018 that includes more head-scratchers. Have you wanted to text someone about a fire extinguisher but didn’t want to tap out all those letters? You can now choose the fire extinguisher emoji. Lobster? Amoeba? Bald-headed woman? Or do you have the need to send someone a text about a pair of women’s flat shoes?

It’s all in the new 2018 emoji offerings.

Of course you’ve probably never needed a fire extinguisher emoji and wonder if or why you ever would? Before you think all this emoji code is nonsense, you should know the tech community believes it’s all very important. Not for goofy silly texts between friends, but for a much wider audience in the future.

The Unicode Consortium is made up of appointees from some of the largest tech companies in the world including Facebook, Google, Apple, IBM, Adobe and Microsoft. Each year members review nominees for new emoji and then, after careful study, chooses the ones that will be included in the next Unicode update. It is currently Unicode Emoji 11.0.

Rather than being just a novelty, members treat emoji as a global language with the goal of allowing people all over the world to communicate with one another, without having to know their native language. By using emoji, someone in Asia can communicate with someone from another country clearly, provided it is over a mobile device or messaging app.

Today there are emoji for all types of food, sports, faces, animals, occupations and national flags.

The consortium has already announced candidates for the next emoji Unicode update in 2019 which include nominations for a guide dog, kite and white heart. You can see the full list here. http://unicode.org/emoji/future/emoji-candidates.html

Anyone can submit an emoji proposal and the consortium will include it in their reviews.