Engadget: Google Meet adds emoji as a ‘non-disruptive’ way to react in calls. “Google is making Meet more social with a new feature called in-meeting reactions. The idea is that users can send one of nine emoji reactions, including đđ and đ, which will appear on the recipient’s window and be visible to all in the meeting.”
Rolling Stone: We Couldnât Have Made It Through This Year Without the Saluting Emoji. “…in the end, no emoji was better suited for the ups and downs 2022 than the saluting face. Everyone from an ex-pro Call of Duty gamer to a Berkeley City Council member to musician Zephani Jong found themselves obsessed with the stalwart little expression. More than one fan has claimed that the emoji changed their lives, helping them persevere through trial and tribulation.” Note to historians coming across this crusty old blog hundreds of years from now: that last sentence may not make sense to you, but it absolutely does to me, and if you manage to reassemble my personality from all the italicized comments I’ve left in ResearchBuzz over the last 25 years, I’ll be happy to explain.
How-To Geek: Yes, Emoji Have Multiple Meanings Too. “In case you havenât heard, Gen Z has apparently ‘canceled’ a handful of emoji, including the thumbs-up. Thatâs absolutely not true, but itâs brought something interesting to light. Do people not realize emojis have multiple meanings, just like words do?”
CNET: You’ll Have to Pry the Thumbs-Up Emoji From My Cold, Dead, Ancient Hands. “Until this week, I viewed the thumbs-up emoji as, well, a simple thumbs-up emoji. Sometimes a thumbs-up emoji is just a thumbs-up emoji, Freud once said. Freud wasn’t on Slack.”
University of British Columbia: Emo-jional rescue: UBCO researchers create tool to measure the emotion in emojis. “How much is really known about those smiley faces staring back at from smartphone screens? Anyone who has ever wondered if the people sending them are really that happy is not alone. Thanks to a pair of UBC Okanagan colleagues, researchers striving to better understand the ever-expanding world of emojis now have a new tool to keep pace with technologyâwhat they call a multidimensional lexicon of emojis (MLE).”
BBC: Anti-vax groups use carrot emojis to hide Facebook posts. “Facebook groups are using the carrot emoji to hide anti-vax content from automated moderation tools. The BBC has seen several groups, one with hundreds of thousands of members, in which the emoji appears in place of the word ‘vaccine’. Facebook’s algorithms tend to focus on words rather than images. The groups are being used to share unverified claims of people being either injured or killed by vaccines.”
CNET: The Cowboy Is Deeply Misunderstood, Says Adobe Emoji Report. “His warm smile beams out from beneath the rim of his 10-gallon Stetson, bringing farm-to-text delight into every conversation he joins. Summoned by only the most brazen texters, his rambunctious presence offers a sudden jolt of rodeo-howling glee when he rides into a thread. The message he sends? A mysterious riddle. His delivery? Wild and untamable. No one, it seems, truly knows the secrets of the chaotically alluring cowboy emoji.”
Mashable: The real meaning behind the crab emoji is darker than you think. “Each time a prominent public figure dies, you might see more crab emoji đŠ on Twitter, Reddit, and the comment section of Instagram posts. It’s a not-so-subtle nod in celebration of the passing of the reign, influence, or life of a particularly controversial character.”
Culture Map Houston: BeyoncĂ© rules the internet with historic Twitter emoji celebrating her wildly anticipated new album. “Now, in honor of the news that broke the internet this summer, Twitter has released a new fandom emoji in honor of Houstonâs icon. Notably, this is only the second time ever that Twitter is creating an emoji for a fandom: BTS, the insanely popular K-Pop act, received the first custom fandom emoji in 2017 when the group reached 10 million followers.”
The Verge: New emoji for iOS and Android include a high five and shaking face. “The Unicode Consortium only has 31 draft emoji this year that will likely be rolled out in 2022 and 2023. While the draft emoji can change between now and finalization in September, most (if not all) will make it through. Contenders include a shaking face and much-needed high five and wireless emojis.”
Search Engine Land: The LinkedIn Funny emoji is here. “LinkedIn has finally added one of the most requested features. The Funny emoji started rolling out to LinkedIn users at some point in the last couple of hours.”
WIRED: How to Officially Submit Your Emoji Idea. “IF YOUâVE EVER had an idea for a new emoji bouncing around in your head, nowâs your chance. The official online submission window for 2022 opened in early April and closes at the end of July. Anyone not familiar with the history of the tiny cartoon images should check out our guide to emoji by senior writer Arielle Pardes, who explains the emojiâs background in Japanese culture and how itâs currently indexed by a nonprofit group known as the Unicode Consortium.”
CNET: WhatsApp Is Launching Community Chats, Adding Emoji Message Reactions To Texts. “WhatsApp is taking a page from Telegram’s book with new Community group chats, expanding voice calls to handle up to 32 participants and adding emoji reactions to messages.”
Mashable: Tears of joy emoji might be experiencing a renaissance. “The laughing crying emoji might be coming back into vogue. According to an Emojipedia analysis of over 2.16 billion tweets, the face with tears of joy emoji đ has returned to its spot as Twitter’s number one emoji by the slimmest of margins, just barely surpassing the loudly crying face đ.”
NPR: Which skin color emoji should you use? The answer can be more complex than you think. “Heath Racela identifies as three-quarters white and one-quarter Filipino. When texting, he chooses a yellow emoji instead of a skin tone option, because he feels it doesn’t represent any specific ethnicity or color. He doesn’t want people to view his texts in a particular way. He wants to go with what he sees as the neutral option and focus on the message.”
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