Raise a claw if you want a lobster emoji.
Or sign Luke’s Lobster’s online petition, calling on the emoji gatekeepers at the Unicode Consortium to codify the crustaceans among crab, shrimp and other edible sea creature ideograms.
The East Village-based seafood shack chain is promising a free lobster roll to the first 100 customers who sign the Change.org petition at its newest location in midtown on opening day, Aug. 30.
“The emoji sea is filled with crab, shrimp, octopus, squid, whale, spouting whale, Blowfish (?) and even non-fish-human-deep-sea-diver!” reads the petition to “make the lobster emoji happen.” “There is a large void in the shape of our clawed crustacean friend.”
A Unicode Consortium subcommittee named the lobster one of 67 emoji candidates — among them a frowning pile of poo, a mosquito and a sliced bagel — for a June 2018 release earlier this month.
Finalists will be selected at the organization’s fourth-quarter meeting in October.
“With our lobster-loving friends’ help, we know we can convince Unicode to push the Lobster emoji to the finals and become an OFFICIAL emoji in 2018!” the Luke’s Lobster crew says in its petition.
Of course, the savviest New Yorkers won’t show their true red colors until Aug. 30, when the new Luke’s shack opens its doors at 11 a.m. at 1407 Broadway and rewards those who sign the petition in person with the aforementioned free lobster rolls.
