Spaniards Campaign For Paella Emoji

Paella is a much-beloved dish, with supporters so ardent they are currently campaigning across social media to have it commemorated with a new emoji.

According to The Local, the #PaellaEmoji campaign was initially started as a joke by Valencian comedian Eugeni Alemany, but once he started talking about it he decided he really wanted one.

"Why not?" he said. "You have the chicken leg and the shrimp tail; who the f**k sends the shrimp tail!?"

Alemany says paella represents harmony and friendship. Unsurprisingly, the paella rice brand La Fallera agrees that a paella emoji would be an excellent addition and decided to join in.

Alemany says he visited Silicon Valley last month to try and convince companies to make a paella emoji. He said Mark Davies, CEO of the Unicode Consortium, which makes new emojis, said paella actually had a shot.

"He told us paella had a good chance, but that people had to prove they would really use the emoji," Alemany said, "so we really decided to push for people to support the campaign."

Users in Spain have been rallying behind the #PaellaEmoji hashtag to prove that people would actually use it if Unicode were to make it.