

It started with a tweet. A viral one. One of those posts that makes the internet collectively gasp, squint, and shout: “No way!”
According to the now-debunked viral post by the parody account Drop Pop, Apple was allegedly planning to roll out a set of eight emoji dedicated to some of pop’s biggest queens-Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj, Lana Del Rey, and Iggy Azalea-as part of its upcoming iOS 18.5 update. The tweet lit up timelines faster than a Beyoncé surprise album.
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But, as it turns out, this update was as fictional as an AI-generated Lana Del Rey song about metaphysical fog and Red Bull. The account later clarified (in its own bio, no less) that it’s all satire, folks. No pop icons are coming to your emoji keyboard anytime soon.
Internet excitement crashes into a wall of weirdness
Still, the idea was too juicy not to run with. For a brief moment, fans imagined texting each other in pop star emoji code. “Meet you at 8? Beyonce, pink, dance” could’ve meant “Yes, Beyoncé, let’s go out.” Or something. Who knows.
But the fantasy began to crack once people actually looked at the alleged designs.
“Did they make these in 2014 and just find them in an email draft?” one user asked, genuinely perplexed.
And the critiques came fast: why did the Taylor Swift emoji have short hair and blue eyes (when she currently doesn’t), why did Lana Del Rey get a bob cut, and-most controversially-why did the Ariana Grande emoji appear several skin tones darker than she does now?
“Ari hasn’t been Black since 2019,” one commenter joked, referring to the singer’s drastic style shift in recent years. Another fan deadpanned: “This is like 14 skin shades ago.”
Even Rihanna wasn’t safe. One user asked: “Who is the blonde above Ariana?” Others mistook Iggy Azalea’s emoji for Christina Aguilera. And someone just screamed into the void: “WHAT IS THIS?!”
As the internet does best, it spiraled.
No, these emoji aren’t real-and never were
While some fans were devastated to learn they couldn’t send a miniature digital Beyoncé in group chats, others were relieved the uncanny celebrity approximations weren’t actually Apple’s doing.
For the record, the Unicode Consortium-the real-world emoji overseers-does not and will not approve emojis based on living people. So the idea that a Taylor Swift icon was ever going to sit next to a crying face or a red heart on your phone? Complete fiction.
Apple did recently add eight new emoji in its iOS 18.4 update, but they include things like a broken chain and a lime-not, unfortunately, Rihanna mid-Fenty runway.
Drop Pop, the account behind the original viral tweet, describes itself as a “satirical pop culture news outlet” and warns readers that “nothing on this account represents factual news.”
Lesson learned? Don’t believe everything you read on the internet-especially when it involves turning pop stars into cartoon icons.
Emoji expectations: crushed.
This news was originally published on this post .
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