Hairy Creature

It shows Bigfoot, the legendary ape-like giant of the forest. The picture is a broad, fur-covered figure walking on two legs, somewhere between a gorilla and a very large person, and it belongs to the same emoji family as the troll, the mermaid and the zombie: creatures people tell stories about, not animals you can visit at a zoo.

If you grew up outside North America, here is the legend in short. Bigfoot, also called Sasquatch from a Salish name in the Pacific Northwest, is said to roam the forests of the United States and Canada, leaving huge footprints and showing up in blurry photos. The Himalayas have the yeti, nicknamed the abominable snowman; Australia has the yowie; many countries have a "wild man" of their own. No specimen has ever been produced, and most scientists treat the sightings as hoaxes and misidentified bears. That is exactly what makes it fun: a famous 1967 film clip of a hairy figure striding across a creek bed is still argued about today.

Because the creature is famous for never being caught, the emoji carries a ready-made joke. Send it next to a photo that is too dark or blurry to prove anything, about a friend who keeps vanishing before the bill arrives, or about any claim people swear is true but can never show you. On the plain side, it also works for a hiking trip, a camping weekend, a monster movie night, or anyone with a proud beard or a hairy chest.

Why isn't it just called the Bigfoot emoji?

Unicode kept the name generic so every region's legend fits. Bigfoot and Sasquatch belong to North America, the yeti to Nepal and Tibet, the yowie to Australia, the hibagon to Japan, and an emoji standard used worldwide does not pick one. So the official name is "hairy creature", the keyboard may show it under "bigfoot" or "hairy", and whichever monster you grew up with gets to claim the picture.

It arrived with the Emoji 17.0 set, alongside a trombone, a treasure chest, an orca and a distorted face, and was the one the press talked about most, usually under the headline that Bigfoot had finally got his emoji.