An Important Update From Apple’s CEO (Chief Emoji Official)

Dear Apple Friends and Shareholders,

I’m so excited to share some updates with you to our emoji collection. But before we get started, it’s super important that you all know that as I write this, I am wearing a simple chambray oxford shirt with no tie of any sort and standard-issue dad jeans. It’s critical that you understand I’m dressed like any one of you, making me--and our products by extension-- accessible as hell.

Now that we’re on the same page, I can’t wait to share the 72 new emoji we’re adding to our stable. I know you’ve eagerly awaited these, and it gives me great pride to deliver 38 percent of what you were hoping for (and 11 percent of what we’re truly capable of) in the grand Apple tradition.

Needless memes

Let’s start with the elephant in the room, or in this case, the 800-pound gorilla. Yes, it’s not just a rumor. We now have a Harambe emoji. Before, there wasn’t an elegant, single emoji way to keep a needless, absurd meme alive long after its expiration date. But now, a full six months after the fact, here we are. You’re welcome.

Food

I know what you’re thinking: why are we two full minutes into this thing and no one has whispered a single word about avocados yet? We hear you. That’s why we’re pleased to announce that an avocado half is now an option.(Complete with pit! Top that, Google phone. Now it’s easier than ever to tell everyone you’re white.

We’ve also added an egg. And while we haven’t quite "cracked" the code on how to picture a poached egg on top of said avocado toast, stay tuned. We’re Apple--we’ll figure it out eventually.

The avocado isn’t the only Cobb salad staple to finally get its moment in the sun. That’s right--cucumbers are here! The cucumber emoji can be used to suggest a healthy lunch, stand-in for a pickle in a pinch, or provide a nice phallic-yet-not-showboating alternative to the eggplant. This one took our team so much time to get just right that we had to once again sacrifice a screen that doesn’t shatter when you ask Siri a question above a whisper, but hey--priorities. You can always get a new phone. You can’t always come up with an easy way to send lewd messages that won’t offend a vegan.

Before we move on from food, let’s briefly note our new “shallow pan of food” emoji, though to be clear, this is primarily designed for cultures outside the U.S. where shallow pans of food are more common than, say, a huge sandwich where both pieces of bread have been replaced with pieces of deep-fried chicken and the middle of the sandwich is just lard and Oreos.

Sports

We’re pleased to create a first, second and third place medal, though we’ve been surprised to learn that anyone under 35 does not seem to immediately recognize or understand the silver or bronze medal since they were raised that all participants are special unicorn champions who win just by being them. We've also added emoji like handball, person doing a cartwheel and juggling, because we are Cupertino web engineers and that’s our best educated guess on this concept of “sports.”

Let’s see, what else...There’s some breakfast food, lady judges...did I say Harambe? Ok, I did, good, good. Well, that about covers it. Thank you for allowing Apple to better your life and world through technology. See you again in a year to tell you that last year’s updates are now obsolete garbage.

Please note: This entire note has been translated (against my will) by my assistant from emoji into English, at the behest of Tim Cook and my mother Joyce.

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Brooke Preston (@bigu) is a comedy writer and storyteller. Visit brookeprestoncomedy.com.