There ’s no question emojis have become wildly democratic . But on Instagram , the familiar happy face , eye and buss brim are more than just a cunning shorthand . They ’re on their way to becoming the prevalent , worldwide conformation of communication .
“ It is a rarefied privilege to abide by the wage hike of a new voice communication , ” Thomas Dimson , a software technologist on Instagram ’s data team , wrote ina company blog poston Friday . “ Emoji are becoming a valid and near - universal method acting of expression in all languages . ”
According to the company , emoji usage on Instagram has arise steeply since its introduction on iOS keyboard in 2011 , and again on Android keyboards in early 2012 . As of March 2015 , intimately one-half of all textual matter - based communication over Instagram curb emoji . Finland is lead the emojification of Instagram ’s dialect , using the pictorial shorthand in a full 60 percentage of all school text .
The simple , character - based emoji organization that ’s woven itself into the fabric of our digital life story is having linguistic reverberation . Even as our ability to express ourselves with emoji is determine by the number of symbols uncommitted , users are regain new way to communicate , by pairing multiple emoji together to form rudimentary “ judgment of conviction ” or persuasion . Analysts at Instagram are trying to quantify this effect , by writing algorithms that predict the linguistic context around a given emoji and making a surmise at the symbolization ’s signification . run these algorithmic rule through monumental batches of Instagram text , they ’re identifying groups of semantically similar words and internet slang that mapping onto a single emoji . Here , for instance , are a couple popular emoji , along with their most common text - establish meanings :
😂 ( ranked 1st in emoji usage ): lolol , lmao , lololol , lolz , lmfao , lmaoo , lolololol , lol , ahahah , ahahha , loll , ahaha , ahah , lmfaoo , ahha , lmaooo , lolll , lollll , ahahaha , ahhaha , lml , lmfaooo
😍 ( ranked 2nd in emoji usage ): beautifull , gawgeous , gorgeous , perfff , georgous , gorgous , hottt , goregous , cuteeee , beautifullll , georgeous , baeeeee , hotttt , babeee , sexyyyy , perffff , hawttt
👍 ( range 9th in emoji usage ): # keepitup , # fingerscrossed , aswell , haha , # impressed , # yourock , lol , # greatjob , bud , # goodjob , awesome , good , # muchlove , # proudofyou , job , # goodluck
😭 ( rate 11th in emoji utilisation ): ughh , ughhh , ughhhh , ugh , uggh , ugghh , ughhhhh , ughhhhhh , ugggh , lolol , wahhhh , rn , oml , uhg , agh , xc , omgg , omfg , omf , lololol , whyyy , loll , wahhhhh , tooo , kms
🙌 : # waitonit , # justwaitonit , # wonthedoit , # nuffsaid , # yeslawd , # youtherealmvp , # stayblessed , # thatisall , thou , # enoughsaid , leggo , # onlythebeginning
Even Instagram ’s many colored heart emoji ’s all have different linguistic association : 💙 is often used in the context of autism awareness cause , 💚 associates with Irish pride , and 💛 mean # springishere .
To visually examine the relationship between many different emoji , Instagram researchers used a statistical ordination technique that map the characters in x - y coordinate space based on their ( English terminology ) import . Emoji that clump together in this patch have a more interchangeable linguistic connection :
So many absorbing questions arise here , all of which I ’m certain will keep linguists busy for long time to come . As we keep to supply novel emojis to our digital dialect , how will the excess symbols shape our power to put across ? Do most emojis carry like significance from language to language ? If so , can emojis truly become a universal form of communication ?
Perhaps most importantly : Is the surrogate of complex sentences and ideas with unproblematic , pictorial characters a unspoilt affair ? Or is the disappearance of written words diminishing our power to verbalize ourselves ? These are question we have n’t really paused to consider . But , as Mike Isaacwritesfor the New York Times , if there was any digital ecosystem where the linguistic experiment was bound to bechance , it was Instagram :
Instagram itself is a mean of expression that does not require the consumption of words . The app ’s meteoric hike has mostly been assign to the power of image , the ease that arrive , for example , in looking at a photograph of a sundown rather than read a verbal description of one .
We may still have a lot to find out about our new language , but I think we ’ve puzzle sentence . Emojis , it seems , are here to stay . 🎉 🎊 🎉
[ Instagram Engineering ]
EmojisInternet slang
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