Taco Bell has found its cause: The fast-food chain is petitioning Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit that oversees computer text coding standards, including for those charming “ picture characters” known as emoji, to include a taco in its next batch of emoji characters, scheduled for release in mid-2015.

“THE TACO EMOJI NEEDS TO HAPPEN,” Taco Bell pleads in its Change.org petition, which, as of Friday afternoon, had more than 27,000 signatures.

The California-based company feels its namesake food product has been unfairly overlooked by the textoscenti.

“Why do pizza and hamburger lovers get an emoji but taco lovers don’t?” the petition asks. “Here’s a better question: Why do we need four different types of mailboxes? Or 25 different types of clocks? Or a VCR tape and floppy disk emoji? No one even uses those things anymore.”

Taco Bell’s social media team has been ramping up its efforts in recent days, tweeting requests for signatures and links to an emojiless “Taco Emoji” T-shirt, which the company store is selling for $22.99, with shipping included. The emphatically no-frills T-shirt is proof of the seriousness of its purpose, Taco Bell has indicated.

And taco emoji supporters are equally emphatic.

“I have never needed an emoji more than a taco emoji,” wrote one petition signer.

Unicode, the taco-lovin’, emoji-craving people have spoken.