Finally, there’s an emoji that expresses just how exhausted we are – and it was created by a Canberran
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Six months through the year and feeling worn out? Soon there’ll be an emoji for that.
And honestly, it’s about time.
Joining the slew of emojis that we use on the regular (like the crying face, the melting face, and the persevering face…do you see a theme here?), the ‘exhausted, sleepy, tired’ face will be making its debut on our phones at the beginning of 2025.
Created by Canberra local and creative Erin Collett, the exciting addition will finally let us communicate how sleep-deprived we are without actually using words – and when you’re exhausted, you know how important that is.
That’s what inspired Erin in the first place.
“One morning, before the arse crack of dawn and after another sleepless night enduring my gorgeous little one’s FOMO, I was texting a friend and searching in vain for a suitably haggard emoji befitting my current dishevelled, somewhat feral appearance,” explains Erin.
“I searched and searched – one emoji was yawning, another one happily asleep – but none captured the feeling of utter defeat. Which got me wondering: ‘Who are the overlords that decide what emoji appear on the keyboard anyway?’.”
A quick Google search and some scrolling later, Erin discovered Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) and within that organisation, the Emoji Sub-Committee – a group of tech industry representatives who decide what emojis are available for public use.
“From here I discovered that literally anyone can submit a proposal,” says Erin.
“The UTC doesn’t accept petitions of public demand or popularity. Rather new emoji are determined through quite a technical submission process, which requires sourcing significant Google trends data to support the suggested emoji as being universally useful, recognisable, and impactful on a small scale.”
“My research led me to discover that the frequency of the search term ‘baby sleep’ in Google exceeds the term ‘recipe’ by more than double. People are more concerned about sleep than food.”
Working as a senior creative with Synergy Group, Erin was the perfect person to bring her brilliant idea to life. With a background in basically anything imaginable within the creative realm as well as experience in working on content for the ABC’s Gruen, her team at work cheered her on as she got to work in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign.
“There were a few iterations along the way to capture the depths of despair experienced not only by parents but the hungover and sleepless shift workers of the world alike,” she explains.
“With deep experience as a graphic designer, I had a fantastic time setting myself the challenge of creating the most wonderfully designed emoji, in the most thoroughly researched and beautifully typeset proposal the committee had ever seen.”
Erin and her daughter.
And while she ultimately created the emoji for her own enjoyment, the fact it’s been accepted by the UTC is a wonderful, and very belated bonus. Submitting the proposal in December 2018 – not long after her daughter turned one – after five years of no updates, Erin had almost forgotten about her project.
That was until a few weeks ago when a friend texted her to say her emoji had been accepted by the Emoji Sub-Committee.
“I’d grieved the idea long ago and fully accepted its demise. Then one night a few weeks ago, a friend texted me with the wonderful news. I couldn’t sleep I was so excited, and so, the eye bags returned. Yet, devastatingly, the emoji was still months away,” says Erin.
“With just a few nights of typey types and a little time in design all from our unsuspecting Canberra-town, I’ve managed to secure a kind of playful, miniature world domination that I’m sure even ol’ mate Elon Musk and the Prime Minister will likely be making frequent use of. All the major platforms, including Apple, Samsung, Instagram, and Facebook, are working on their own executions of my idea,”
“The Unicode Technical Committee only releases a limited number of new emoji each year, and once accepted, are never deleted – the only exception being the gun, which was replaced by the water pistol — so it’s kind of like a teeny tiny legacy that lives on in our planet’s universal language forever and ever and ever and ever.”
Ridiculously excited that her creation will be soon on millions of devices, Erin doesn’t plan on creating more emojis anytime soon. To her, the real value of the experience is how it’s reminded her of the value of creativity and playfulness.
“It’s all a bit surreal that this has resurfaced again after so long,” she says.
“Someone could spend billions to have this kind of reach, or a sleepless someone could simply have an idea, and the willingness to see where it might go. It also shows that even when life is tough and your eyeballs feel like they might fall out of your head, it doesn’t need to be so serious. Choosing your mindset, and making your own fun, can turn even some of the hardest things in life into an opportunity.”
To see more of Erin’s work, visit her website erincollett.com.au
