Taco Emoji

A taco in a shell, filled with meat, lettuce, cheese, and tomato. 🌮 is one of the most campaigned-for emojis in Unicode history, one of the most controversial food emoji designs ever released, and the anchor of America's favorite recurring food tradition.

Taco Tuesday. The primary cultural engine behind 🌮. "Taco Tuesday" is a weekly tradition at restaurants, workplaces, and friend groups across the US and beyond. Instagram has 13 million posts under #Tacos and 5 million under #TacoTuesday. TikTok's #Tacos has 14.2 billion views. The phrase "Taco Tuesday" was actually trademarked by Taco John's, a Wyoming chain. LeBron James tried to trademark it too, but the USPTO refused, calling it a "widely used, common phrase." Taco Bell eventually petitioned to free the phrase from trademark restrictions entirely.

The petition emoji. Before 🌮 existed, Taco Bell ran a Change.org petition in 2014 titled "The Taco Emoji Needs To Happen," collecting over 33,000 signatures. ABC News covered it with the headline "America needs a taco emoji." Unicode approved it for Unicode 8.0 in 2015.

The hard shell controversy. When 🌮 launched, the internet split. The Unicode design was a pre-fabricated hard-shell taco with shredded iceberg lettuce and cheddar cheese, essentially a Taco Bell taco. L.A. Taco published "We Lost", calling the design "bullshit" and arguing it wasn't a real taco. They even published their own authentic taco emoji design with soft masa tortillas, cilantro, and carne asada. Apple eventually redesigned their taco to a soft corn tortilla version in iOS 10.2, prompting L.A. Taco to declare "We Won." Google and Samsung still show the hard shell.

The innuendo. In slang, 🌮 has been co-opted as a sexual euphemism, similar to how 🍑 and 🍆 developed double meanings. Context determines whether it's about food or something else.

🌮 was approved in Unicode 8.0 (2015) and added to Emoji 1.0.

🌮 has a built-in weekly spike that no other food emoji can match. Every Tuesday, social media fills with 🌮 as people post about Taco Tuesday plans, restaurant deals, and homemade taco spreads.

After the emoji launched, Taco Bell created the #TacoEmojiEngine, a Twitter bot that generated custom GIFs when people tweeted 🌮 paired with other emojis. The campaign generated over 500,000 tweets in its first five days and won a Cannes Lions Gold award for digital marketing.

National Taco Day (October 4) is the second major spike, when brands and users flood feeds with 🌮 alongside #NationalTacoDay.

The hard shell vs soft taco design debate highlighted something bigger: emoji design isn't neutral. When the original design looked like a Taco Bell product rather than an authentic Mexican taco, it raised questions about whose food culture gets represented in the emoji keyboard. The debate paralleled conversations about skin tone diversity and same-sex couple emojis.

The taco emoji has one of the best origin stories in Unicode history.

In November 2014, Taco Bell launched a Change.org petition with the rallying cry "The Taco Emoji Needs To Happen." ABC News, HuffPost, and food media amplified the campaign. Over 33,000 people signed. It wasn't just Taco Bell. Taco lovers genuinely felt underrepresented in the emoji keyboard, which had pizza (🍕), hamburger (🍔), and even a rice ball (🍙) but no taco.

The Unicode Consortium approved it for Unicode 8.0 in mid-2015. Vice declared it had a "happy ending." But the design sparked immediate controversy. The standard emoji showed a hard-shell, Tex-Mex-style taco with ground beef, shredded lettuce, and cheddar cheese. L.A. Taco, a publication covering authentic Mexican food culture, published an article titled "We Lost" calling the design "bullshit" for representing Taco Bell's version of a taco rather than an authentic Mexican street taco. They published their own design with soft masa tortillas, cilantro, and carne asada.

Apple listened. In iOS 10.2 (December 2016), they redesigned their taco emoji to show a soft corn tortilla with authentic-looking fillings. L.A. Taco published "We Won." Google and Samsung still use the hard shell, so which taco you see depends on your phone.

After the launch, Taco Bell turned 🌮 into a marketing asset. Their #TacoEmojiEngine Twitter campaign generated over 500,000 tweets in five days and won a Cannes Lions Gold award. Tweet 🌮 + any other emoji, and the bot would send back a custom mashup GIF. It was one of the first major emoji-driven brand campaigns.

Approved in Unicode 8.0 (2015) as U+1F32EU+1F32E TACO. Added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015. Apple included it in iOS 9.1 (October 21, 2015). The original design across most platforms showed a hard-shell taco. Apple redesigned theirs to a soft corn tortilla in iOS 10.2 after backlash about authenticity. Google and Samsung retain the hard shell.

The hard shell vs soft taco design controversy is itself a cultural difference map. The US Tex-Mex tradition favors hard-shell tacos with lettuce and cheese (think Taco Bell). Authentic Mexican street tacos use soft corn tortillas with cilantro and onion. The emoji design debate became a proxy for who defines "real" tacos.

In Mexico, tacos are street food staples with hundreds of regional variations. Using 🌮 in Mexican contexts carries genuine cultural weight. In the US, 🌮 is more associated with Taco Tuesday and casual fun dining. In Europe and Asia, 🌮 reads primarily as "American-style Mexican food" without the cultural depth.

• •Taco Bell's 2014 Change.org petition for a taco emoji collected 33,000+ signatures. ABC News headlined it "America needs a taco emoji."
• •L.A. Taco published "We Lost" when the original hard-shell design launched, then "We Won" when Apple redesigned it to a soft tortilla in iOS 10.2.
• •Taco Bell's #TacoEmojiEngine Twitter bot generated custom GIFs when users tweeted 🌮 + any other emoji. It produced 500,000+ tweets in five days and won a Cannes Lions Gold award.
• •Instagram has 13M posts under #Tacos and 5M under #TacoTuesday. TikTok's #Tacos tag has 14.2 billion views.
• •"Taco Tuesday" was trademarked by Taco John's. LeBron James tried to trademark it too, the USPTO refused, and Taco Bell petitioned to free the phrase for public use.
• •Apple and Google/Samsung show different tacos. Apple redesigned to a soft corn tortilla in 2016. Google and Samsung still show a hard-shell Tex-Mex version. The same text looks like different food depending on your device.

• •LeBron James's "Taco Tuesday" Instagram videos became a cultural phenomenon. He posted weekly taco videos with his family, then tried to trademark the phrase, which the USPTO denied.
• •Taco Bell's #TacoEmojiEngine (2015) was one of the first major emoji-driven brand campaigns. Tweet 🌮 + any emoji, get a custom GIF. 500K+ tweets in five days. Cannes Lions Gold.
• •L.A. Taco's coverage of the design controversy ("We Lost" / "We Won") became the defining narrative of how emoji design can spark cultural debates about authenticity and representation.

• •🌮 is U+1F32EU+1F32E. Unicode name: TACO. CLDR short name: "taco." Common shortcodes: :taco::taco: (Slack, Discord, GitHub). Part of Unicode 8.0 (2015), Emoji 1.0. Design varies significantly by platform: Apple shows a soft corn tortilla, Google/Samsung show a hard shell. Cross-platform display should be tested for food-related features.

See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.