Picture this: It’s a warm Maine summer afternoon, and you’ve just taken a seat on the deck overlooking the ocean at your favorite lobster pound. You’re poised to eat what looks like the world’s juiciest lobster roll. Obviously, you want to post a picture of the scene to Instagram with the most fitting emoji to describe how blissed out you feel.
Seconds later, you’re shocked to discover that there is no lobster emoji. The injustice!
Luke Holden, of Luke’s Lobster in Tenants Harbor, knows how you feel.
“There’s a huge ask for it, so we decided to throw this petition together,” Holden, 34, said Thursday.
On Tuesday, Holden started a Change.org petition to collect signatures from others who agree: It’s about time there was a lobster emoji.
As of Thursday, the online petition had collected more than 2,300 signatures on its way to its goal of 2,500.
Holden said he was surprised at how much of a “groundswell” there has been in response.
“We want to be a part of any conversation that has to do with lobster,” Holden said. “This is just fun for us.”
Holden, who opened his namesake restaurant in New York City in 2009, has since opened another 30 across the country, including a dozen in New York City, three in Washington, D.C., and one in Boston. There are five Luke’s in Japan. His location in Tenants Harbor is the only Luke’s in Maine.
There are more than “3,500 #NoLobsterEmoji posts on Instagram and Twitter,” the Luke’s lobster crew wrote on the petition page.
“The emoji sea is filled with crab, shrimp, octopus, squid, whale, spouting whale, Blowfish (?) and even non-fish-human-deep-sea-diver!” the Luke’s crew wrote. “And out of the water, shrimp gets extra love with tempura! There is a large void in the shape of our favorite Maine lobster.”
This month, the Unicode Constortium, the governing body that gets to choose emojis, announced that the lobster is one of 70 contenders that could be officially added in 2018.
Other possible emoji additions that Unicode Consortium will consider include a peacock, a bagel, a drunk face and a sad pile of poo.
While the lobster campaign is lighthearted, it’s also one more way to garner attention and hopefully sales for one of Maine’s most important industries, Matt Jacobson, executive director of the Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative, said Thursday morning.
Last year, 131 million pounds of lobster was harvested in Maine, Jacobson said, which was worth almost “$600 million at the dock.”
“This [emoji drive] is fun, but for us, it’s also a serious thing,” said Jacobson, who collaborated with Holden on the idea and is now helping the local business on the marketing end.
“Our charge is to drive interest in Maine lobster. That’s what we’re trying to do,” Jacobson said.
“There’s this notion of Maine in people’s minds that it’s idyllic,” he said, adding that, to many people, Maine and lobster are almost one and the same.
A lobster emoji, Jacobson said, is “just another way for people to demonstrate their love of lobster.”