The beloved emojis that the iPhone has given us to help communicate our text messages in a fun, exciting, and colorful way have just outdone themselves. For those of you who have updated your iPhone to iOS 9, you are well aware of the 150+ new emoji characters that have appeared on your keyboard. At first glance you thought, “Wow I love the new update. These emojis rock. Look at all the flags.” Then, you go to reply to a text from your roommate and are unable to find your favorite cat emoji. Good grief!

After discovering this new world of iPhone emojis, I decided to ask around and see what everyone thinks about them and how they have impacted their texting game. Senior Shelby Pack shared with me that, “Well, first of all, I can’t get them because I don’t have enough storage. But after having seen them, I have a few things to say: 1) Why is the “glasses smiley face” paired with buck teeth? What is that supposed to say? 2) I love the unicorn. I am unsure of when I will ever use it, but I like the security of knowing it’s there. 3) I love the rock n’ roll hands.”

Fellow senior Margaret Eshleman thinks that they are great fun. She stated, “I like them! I think they are a little overboard in some areas, but I really like how culturally diverse they have become and that there are more options to express myself without having to actually say words.” The culturally diverse factor is definitely something that I noticed myself when going to send my mom a “thumbs up” the other day. You can now pick the skin color of the hand emoji that you are sending! Going along with that, the number of countries that are represented by their flags on the emoji keyboard is exceptional. Now all the world travelers will have the opportunity to use those in their Instagram captions.

As I sit here and flip through the countless emojis that are now at my disposal, I honestly am a bit overwhelmed. It seems like just yesterday I had finally mastered the original emoji keyboard and had all my go-tos in the “frequently used” section. Now, iOS 9 has completely thrown me for a loop. I’ve become extremely boring and use the standard “smiley face” now just so I can save time by not searching for something more interesting. Love it or hate it, future Apple updates will surely bring hundreds more emojis. My final thought: thank goodness there is finally a taco.