Using Hobbit icons inside your status messages

Is there some "officially condoned" method to get Hobbit icons into your status messages?

Back when using Big Brother, I would just add something like: <IMG SRC=/gifs/green.gif ALT=green HEIGHT=16 WIDTH=16 BORDER=0> to the status message. I'm sure something similar would work for Hobbit too. I was just wondering if there was some built-in auto substitution in Hobbit that would be cleaner. Maybe like putting " __GREEN__" inside the status message.