Tucked between a police car and a bullet train hides an emoji that rarely sees the light of day. And it happens to represent one of Cape Town’s most beloved features.
Also read: Look! Table Mountain Aerial Cableway, from 1929 to 2022
92% of the world’s online population uses emojis — but which ones are we using the most? ‘Red heart’, ‘tears of joy’ and ‘kiss face’ unsurprisingly rank the highest. But who are the uncool kids on the block?
The poor ‘mountain cableway’ emoji has landed at the bottom of the frequency list. This poor popularity might decide its fate, but South Africans should feel strongly against this emoji getting discontinued.
The Table Mountain Aerial Cableway is embedded in Cape Town’s heritage. It’s connected – quite literally – to South Africa’s most iconic landmark. Table Mountain is one of the 7 Wonders of Nature and attracts thousands of visitors every year. Today, a visit to the top is effortless, but before our cableway, the only way to reach the top of Table Mountain was by foot. Those who have hiked Platterklip will appreciate the lift.
The building of the cableway was considered a major engineering achievement. It was built with steel and wood. To this day, it offers a safe and easy way to ascend the mountain in under ten minutes.
The Cableway’s official opening ceremony was on October 4, 1929. With easy access to our famous flat-topped icon, Table Mountain became one of Cape Town’s first major tourist attractions.
In 2019 the cableway celebrated a milestone, welcoming its 28 millionth visitor to the mountain.
This is why we need to help the cable car emoji, and doing so is simple. Good Things Guy’s Brent Lindeque has come up with an amazing idea to save it!
“But here’s a crazy idea. What if we work together to not only remove the cableway emoji from the bottom of the list but actually own it as one of our own? Create a global story about how South Africa helped the little emoji “that couldn’t” get to the top!” Brent said.
Every time you tweet or post about your love for the mountain and the cable car (or Cape Town in general), please consider adding the mountain cableway emoji to your post.
Let’s show the world that we are proud of our heritage!
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How to help:
- Use the emoji whenever you tweet or post about Table Mountain and the cable car.
- Vote: Table Mountain Aerial Cableway’s latest nominations.
Also read:
Table Mountain snatches ‘Africa’s Leading Tourist Attraction’ award!
Picture: Emojipedia.