Texting is about to get even more brutal, because an app developer is working on a whole new world of emojis inspired by your favourite metal bands.
KeyLuminati, who just unleashed the Heavy Metal Emoji Keyboard upon society, have revealed plans to add band-oriented expansion packs to their design, which means you’ll soon be able to textually assault your mates with things like (hopefully) angry James Hetfield, sad Kirk Hammett or the drummer equivalent of the poo emoji, Lars Ulrich.
Or, say, rub salt into the wounds when you’re firing or dumping someone with a pic of Eddie The Head flipping the bird?
Speaking with Billboard, app co-creator Mark Mosley explained that the customised emojis would be developed “especially for bands that have theatrical elements, like Ghost or Gwar or Slipknot, bands that have a very specific theme or look”.
Apparently the company has already been in talks with some specific bands and the preliminary conversations have been “very positive”.
“Everybody seems very open to the idea,” Mosley said.
“We have the ability to relaunch full apps, so I would love to do a Metallica emoji keyboard where it would be a completely stand-alone app because we have the ability to do that. That would be amazing,” he continued.
“As far as expansion packs, Ghost is probably No. 1 on my [wish] list, because they have a very rabid fanbase. Everything Ghost does, people respond to it. They’re in a very cool position of growth, which is something we would idealistically look for.”
Keeyluminati’s Heavy Metal Emoji Keyboard app moved 5,000 to 10,000 downloads within its first seven days of availability on the iOS App Store, and the overwhelming response has already inspired a bunch of new upgrades, arriving very soon.
About 50 more emojis are set to be added “in the next few weeks”, with free expansion packs to be released, based on punters’ feedback.
“We’re adding a couple very specific female faces because we got some feedback saying we don’t have enough females,” Mosley said. “We’re also adding more emotion-type things, simple things like thumbs-up, thumbs-down, angry faces, sad faces, more expressive faces to try to diversify it.” (FYI: A cigarette lighter is also “on the short list”).
“I think sometimes there’s this conversation, ‘Do people like rock ’n’ roll?’ or ‘Is heavy metal dead?’” Mosley added.
“When Justin Bieber releases something, of course it’s going to crush because he has a rabid fanbase. So to see something released specifically geared toward fans of heavy metal and heavy music and have it get such a positive overall response is actually really encouraging for me — not just as a businessperson, but as a fan of heavy music.”
The Heavy Metal Emoji Keyboard is available for iPhone over at the Apple App Store, and is coming soon to Android — to be notified when it does arrive, sign up at the Heavy Metal Emoji website.
Catch some screenshots of the current app in action, below.
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https://www.instagram.com/p/BFxoBubAJ2Y/
