Google Blew It By Putting Cheese On Top Of Their Burger Emoji, Expert Says
This is how life in 2017 operates: A series of fleeting moments—with the world exploding and doom encroaching and everywhere a shit-splattered hellscape—where we're able to fixate on something totally stupid and inconsequential, react with exaggerated sentiments, then return to the ceaseless and horrifying misery that is living.
Sooo... what are we fixated on today? It's the placement of cheese! Not even real cheese, but cheese on an emoji.
Wednesday came news that Google revised the design of their burger emoji. First, let's give you the backstory: A previous version had the cheese below the patty and above the bun, which managed to draw the ire of the internet commentariat:
I think we need to have a discussion about how Google's burger emoji is placing the cheese underneath the burger, while Apple puts it on top pic.twitter.com/PgXmCkY3Yc
— Thomas Baekdal (@baekdal) October 28, 2017
After a wave of righteous indignation, no less than the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, said he would get to work remedying this.
Will drop everything else we are doing and address on Monday:) if folks can agree on the correct way to do this! https://t.co/dXRuZnX1Ag
— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) October 29, 2017
But one prominent food placement expert who advised not changing the design was Dan Pashman. He's the host of the popular The Sporkful podcast, a show that aims to enhance our eating experience by exploring—with Edisonian trial-and-error—the best ways to consume foods. Pashman went against the popular grain and argued that the cheese-on-bottom scheme is the superior method. His rationale:
Cheese on bottom is superior. Cheese closer to tongue + seals in juices to prevent bottom bun soggage. Keep up the good work @sundarpichai. https://t.co/Rvf4fJex2Y
— Dan Pashman (@TheSporkful) October 29, 2017
Nevertheless on Wednesday, Google revised its emojis set, and the cheeseburger was indeed redesigned.
🚨 @sundarpichai delivers: Google has fixed their burger emoji 🍔 https://t.co/wyksdfAzbr pic.twitter.com/1aRVzhXYVF
— Emojipedia (@Emojipedia) November 28, 2017
We immediately called Pashman for his opinion on this matter. Pashman, not surprisingly, was not pleased.
Look, if being faux-opinionated about this means keeping our attention, however briefly, away from sexual deviants, racists, and raining locusts, I'll debate emojis with you till next February.