Google gets in on the emoji mashup madness by launching Emoji Kitchen

Likely inspired by the success of Emoji Mashup Bot, a Twitter account that publishes new-wave emojis made from existing ones, Google has launched "Emoji Kitchen" for its Gboard.

As of Feb 13, over 2,000 emojis exist according to Unicode Consortium, the leading reference site on all things emoji when all variants are taken into account. Now, Google is putting a whole new selection of characters at the fingertips of Gboard users by launching "Emoji Kitchen".

The new emoji stickers are created in a similar way to those of the Emoji Mashup Bot, a Twitter account that randomly combines existing emojis to make new ones like a confounded jack-o-lantern or a grinning alien.

Unlike the Bot, however, the Google designs are created by hand rather than being automatically generated, making, the icons more streamlined. Users will be able to "explore new 'recipes' of expressions using your favourite emoji as ingredients".

For example, if you're feeling like a cowboy but are also feeling lovestruck, sad, or like a ghost, there's not an emoji for that. Those with the feature will be able to simply tap on any emoji with mashup options to be prompted with a new collection of icons.

Emoji Kitchen began rolling out to Android users with the Gboard Feb 12.