In the digital age, it’s more emoticons, not pictures, that are worth a thousand words. When you reply to a shoddy post on Twitter, what words can better represent your contempt than the classic “??“?
Everyone that this emoticon is very popular, but what others had a place in the list of the 100 most used emoticons? You can have more than one surprise.
The Unicode Consortium studied which symbols were most used in 2021. And, at first glance, the top ten look pretty positive:
- ??
- ️
- ??
- ??
- ??
- ??
- ??
- ??
- ??
- ??
Laughter, love, smiles, kisses and hearts. Considering that the primary use of emoticons is to encourage and show your support for your loved ones, it makes sense that it is yes. While it’s worth noting that, as you’ve seen, 😂 and may not be as positive when used in social media discussions, as they can mean something like, “Your opinion is so absurd that I piss with laughter. “
Even more surprising is the low popularity of the flags. You would expect them to be used often by travelers and sports fans. In fact, they are the least popular category (albeit the one with the most different symbols) and country flags are the least popular subcategory.
The consortium also looked at the individual categories to determine which is the most popular. The crown (👑) has been the most popular garment this year; the rocket (🚀) dominated the air transport category; the butterfly (🦋) was the most used animal; and, curiously, the cart wheel (🤸) was the star athlete’s emoticon.
Did you know that you can also use emoticons on your Mac?
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