Food Website Upset that Taco Emoji not “an Authentic Taco”

L.A. Taco, which covers food, culture, and the taco lifestyle in Los Angeles, is displeased with how the new taco emoji created by Unicode.

An article written by L.A. Taco appeared in “First We Feast” and is titled, “On Authenticity, Corporate Mind Control, and the Battle over the Taco Emoji.”

Here is the picture that Unicode unveiled:

This is not “an authentic taco,” according to L.A. Taco. “An authentic taco is a Mexican taco, therefore, and one that combines some sort of filling inside of a tortilla,” they write. “While there are infinite combinations that can work within those simple constraints, a standard authentic taco is as much about what it contains (meat, onion, cilantro, corn tortilla) as what it doesn’t (cheddar cheese, tomato chunks, lettuce).”

They suggest this picture instead, which they created:

L.A. Taco also said that they realized that corporations are controlling people’s mindsets when it came to popular culture, explaining “Suddenly, those of us rooting for a real taco emoji realized this was a high-stakes game that could be exploited by large corporations to push their version of what a taco is and should be—and ultimately control the conversation.”

“If the Taco Bell taco were to be enshrined by the emoji designers at Apple, Google, and Microsoft, it would be a slap in the face to the creators, originators, and purveyors of authentic, non-corporate tacos all over the world,” they conclude.

H/T National Review