Simone Biles has already reached “greatest of all time” status, but Twitter just made it official.
Just in time for the Tokyo Olympic Games, Twitter has announced that it’s launching a new GOAT emoji specifically to honor the Olympic gold medalist. This moment marks history for the 24-year-old as she’s the first Olympian to receive a custom emoji from Twitter and first female athlete ever to receive her own GOAT emoji, following after people like Patrick Mahomes.
When used by Twitter users, the emoji will automatically populate alongside hashtags like “#SimoneBiles” or “#Simone” throughout the Olympic Games, which begin today and continue until Aug. 8.
The social recognition for Biles is sure to explode over the next few weeks as she’s considered a crowd-favorite. Her new emoji is designed as a goat sporting a red, sparkly leotard with a gold medal around its neck to recognize her accomplishments.
Witness greatness
Tweet with greatness#SimoneBiles#Simone pic.twitter.com/M6RKzP3KB6— Twitter Sports (@TwitterSports) July 21, 2021
This emoji arrives after the star gymnast declared herself the GOAT back in May by showing off a bedazzled goat head on the back of her leotard at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships.
“The idea was to hit back at the haters,” she told Marie Claire. “I didn’t feel like it was necessarily fair how they could keep saying whatever they wanted, but then if I said something, it wasn’t fair. [The haters] were joking like, ‘I swear, if she put a goat on her leo, blah, blah, blah.’ That would make them so angry. And then I was like, oh, that’s actually a good idea. Let’s make the haters hate it, and the fans love it. And so that’s exactly what we did and why we did it.”
What began as a playful joke to trolls became a powerful statement for the young athlete who’s breaking barriers all-around for women, especially Black women, in sports. During the same competition she wore her goat leotard, she made history as the first woman in history to land the rare Yurchenko double pike against competitors.
According to ESPN, the gymnast has been experimenting with her abilities since the 2020 Olympics was postponed to this summer. Though her new difficult move shocked the masses, it didn’t impress the judges enough to score her higher than a 6.6 start value according to their open-end code of points.
In response to her low score, Biles said the judges are just “mad people are too far ahead and excelling.” In spite of this, Biles said she would continue to dial up the difficulty on her competition simply “because I can.” And that’s why she’s the GOAT.