There's a new emoji for sadness :(

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646-456-9095. Ben Brock Johnson. We are gathered here today to discuss... Emojis. Emojis. Dearly beloved Dan Marie Sievertson, my co-host on Endless Thread, yes we are. Oh no, the bots got you. They got me? Yeah, they got me. The bots be getting everybody. All right, before we talk about emojis or emoji, we need to discuss the elephant emoji in the room, which is... What's that? Is it emoji? Or emojis. I know. And I feel very gif versus jif about this, which is like...

It was always Jif, and I tried to do the right thing for a long time. No, no. And then I just, I was like, wow, nobody's going with this. Even the guy who created it said it was Jif, but... Nope, that's not what it is. It's GIF. Did he really? Yes. He went to his grave saying Jif. I'm not even kidding. I'm dead serious. But the Jif is a peanut butter people one out like myself. And Jif is now standard. Okay. Jif is standard. Yeah.

episode in years past where we referred to emojis plural as emoji and some people were not happy about it so that makes discussing emojis in this episode a little uncomfortable but we're gonna work past it

Because we have some little stories for you. Yes, we do. The story that I have to bring to you today, which is just a little, it's just a little, little one. Much like an emoji. Is about the meaning of emojis. And how it's different for different people. So one of the things that really rocked my world when I learned it...

Which, I mean, to most of our listeners is like, yeah, okay, obviously grandpa. The thumb emoji could be flippant. Like it could be like kind of like a middle finger emoji, but it's a thumb emoji. You know what I mean? Like people give you the thumbs up. That's not like, all right. Or like, cool. It's like, okay, buddy. Yeah. You know what I mean? Has an edge to it. Yeah. I use that on the road behind the wheel.

Mmm. Yep. When you're tempted to give the other finger instead, you're just like, cool, bud. Cool. Yep. That kind of broke my brain because I was like, oh, my God, like, are all these people that are giving me thumbs up emoji? Are they mad at me? Actually, like, it's one of those things where it's like it totally changes how you understand the way you've been communicating with people. Right.

And I will say that I described this recently to a friend who is like, who's probably like an older generation than me. And they were like, are you serious? Like they were like. also very concerned to have learned this they were like oh my god really it means that and i was like well i think it kind of depends on like who you're talking to and what the conversation is but like

We think of emoji as having kind of like a single meaning, right? It's a sort of simple, almost like binary thing where it's like, this is what it means, or it doesn't mean that. But... Emoji maybe contains some small multitudes as well. So I would like to ask you, what emoji do you use when you are sad? What's your I'm sad or that's sad or sad reaction emoji?

Describe the sad situation you're looking for in particular, because it really varies. I feel like when something's actually deeply sad or tragic, you like can't really use an emoji. But if it's like, no, this thing we were going to go to is going to get rained out, you can just use the crying emoji. Well, crying for me is usually like an I'm sad. But it's not like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. Do you have like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry? Probably just like a heart. Maybe like a...

You know, if it's just like a friend or something, you might send a yellow heart, which I think means care, or I interpret it as care. Okay, so... You're getting close. I think a lot of people have used the broken heart. Oh, okay. To say like, okay, that makes my heart break or that's heartbreaking or that's sad. Like that's been a common emoji that has been used to denote, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. That's so sad or whatever. Right?

So this has been common for a long time, but I think one of the weird things that is happening now is there's this delineation between generations. where younger generations, they're like, oh no, I mean, this has always happened, right? But they sort of reject the thing that's over, and they create a new version. Right? So, like, that happens with slang. It happens with all different ways of being in the world. Sure. But the broken heart has fallen out of favor as a sadness emoji. And it...

has been, I think over time, replaced. And my question to you is, do you know what it's been replaced with? Maybe like the thumbs down, something kind of flippant. The like heart hands, the heart made by hands emoji. Nope. No. Is it something ridiculous? Well, let me let me walk you through it. OK, so as near as I can tell, Hart wasn't actually the first one. There's at least one tweet.

from a long time ago, suggesting that it started with the laughing, crying emoji. Yeah. Then it was the actual crying tears streaming down the face emoji. Then it was the skull emoji. Then it was the broken heart emoji. More recently, it has become the wilted flower. Do you know this one? Yeah. Where it's like a rose that's losing a petal. Yeah. So that, as near as I can tell, that became for a while the wilted flower emoji.

or the dead rose emoji, the dead flower emoji was really the chosen emoji to convey sadness, replacing the broken heart. But now we've kind of like gone even past that. And now it is the almost dead battery or low battery emoji. Low battery? I gotta look this up. Yeah, do you know that one? I do now. Little battery with red on the bottom. Yeah. Huh. And that means, like, sadness, heartbreak? Yes. I can't keep up. I know

It's crazy. Right. So like, I, I just think that this is an interesting way in which we all like communicate with each other, but also like certain generations communicate with each other. And it's this way in which again, we're, we're like. less and less able to always kind of communicate the same things to each other with the same language, if that makes sense. I'm still, this is like endless thread ancient history, but I'm still using the like...

The red-faced sweaty person to convey cleaning out the garage. Not like horny or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. You got to catch up, man. You might be sending some real mixed messages. Be careful. I'm still using eggplants to mean my garden's doing well. Oh, no, no, no. You're still sending peaches to people. Saying, would you like to pick some peaches with me? Yeah. Yeah, all those times I do that. Oh, boy. Well, I just, you know, Anne-Marie, I just wanted to catch you up.

And hopefully now you're caught up. So dying rose and a low battery emoji, which I think is like something about that, like speaks to this sort of like. technological ennui that we all are now experiencing. You know what I mean? Where it's like, I'm a robot that is sad because my battery is low. Like, I feel like we're now like fully. The singularity is near.

Yeah, the singularity is near in which sadness is represented by a low battery. But I just wanted to catch you up and make sure that you understood. where we're at and and you know i don't know if you want to say that that makes you sad enough to send the low battery emoji to me but Um, I just wanted you to, to, you know, to be caught up with, with the, with the youths and how they're communicating. Phew. Thank you. It's so great. Well, in a minute, I too.

We'll catch you up on something you need to know that the youths are doing with emojis. Oh boy. Summer's here, and Nordstrom has everything you need for your best-dressed season ever. From beach days and weddings to weekend getaways and your everyday wardrobe, discover stylish options under $100 from tons of your favorite brands like Mango, Skims, Princess...

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They were just as online. You know, Oxford's was brain rot. If you can believe it, its first use was in 1854 by Henry David Thoreau. RIP Henry David Thoreau. You would have hated TikTok. Wait. Candice, we should probably introduce ourselves. You're so right, Kate. Hello, listeners. We are the hosts of Icy YMI, or rather, in case you missed it, Slate's podcast about internet culture. We're extremely online, so you don't have to be.

Follow ICYMI now wherever you listen. Okay. So, similarly to your... story ben okay mine has to do with how we'll say the youths specifically people who are um regulars of youtube shorts who watch a bunch of youtube shorts are using a particular emoji? Are you a YouTube short person? You know, I have to say, like, I only really use YouTube for food.

And I've started slipping into the YouTube shorts for food things, but I still don't feel like it gives me quite enough information to actually make food. So I would say no, I'm not a big YouTube shorts person. Okay, so this started for me with a Reddit post, an out-of-the-loop post.

Which I love out of the loop, that subreddit, because usually I, too, am out of the loop. Right, right. And someone posted, this was about a month ago at the time that we're recording this, they said, what's going on with... a particular emoji on a lot of YouTube shorts. They've been seeing this particular emoji on a lot of YouTube shorts. So I'm going to text you the emoji that this person was asking about. Oh, dude.

So this is... You're beside yourself. I'm beside myself because, no, so this, I was going to talk to you about this. So this is the tram, the trial, the... The aerial tramway. The aerial tramway emoji. Describe it for the people, will ya? It's a cable. And hanging off the cable is a cute little car with little windows and a little door on it.

You could get into the aerial tramway emoji and zip on down to some exotic location that you're on your way to. Or up the mountain to go skiing or snowboarding or whatever it may be. Yeah, that's what it looks like. Yep. Okay. And you were going to say something about it? Well, what I was going to say, and again, this connects to what we were talking about before, is that...

So younger generations, like they are very purposefully basically as near as I can tell. And again, I don't think that this is like anything new necessarily, but it plays out in new ways on the internet. They're basically like. All these other emojis are over. They're like played out. This new emoji, like nobody's using this one enough. We got to start using this one. Right. And so I believe that this, is this not the least used emoji? Or was it? Yes.

Yes and no. Okay, so I'm going to send you the YouTube short that ends up being the answer to this person's question. What is with everybody using this emoji on YouTube shorts? Okay. So the origin, which Redditors... chimed in and eventually got to the answer here is it stems from a particular YouTuber named John Casterline posts this video. It's very short.

This is the least used emoji in the world. We're gonna change that and I need your help. I came up with a plan where we can make this emoji one of the most used emojis, at least on YouTube, and it's pretty simple. Instead of using laughing emojis from now on, replace it with this. And if someone doesn't know why you're doing it, don't tell them. Let's just confuse every person who hasn't seen this video. Okay. This is, he's, it's John's fault. This emoji is everywhere, but also unexplained.

Yes. So this YouTuber is believed to be the origin of when people started swapping out the crying, laughing emoji with the aerial tramway. And as he said, he does not want people to explain themselves. Just post it and make everyone feel. A little nuts. Wow. Yeah. But going back to the thesis here at the top that this is the least used emoji. The reason why I say that that is partially true is that I suspect that he got that information from a Twitter account that is now defunct called...

Least used emoji bot. I was not aware of this Twitter account when it was active. So this Twitter account tweeted out multiple times a day. what the least used emoji was. However, it was the least used emoji On Twitter. That's the only way that it was able to measure what the least used emoji was. It wasn't across all platforms, all social media sites, all the whole internet. This is old, too. It's from 2018. Exactly.

It is old. Yeah. And the least used emoji as of when this account went, you know, defunct, stopped posting, which was in August of 2020, it looks like. The least used emoji was actually something else. It was this. Do you recognize this? No. Do you know what this thing is called? I guess describe it first. Okay, so it looks like, it's sort of confusing, like it's...

It has a musical, like what looks like maybe it's an eighth note. Yes. A musical note. Yep, in the upper right corner. It has, yeah, it's like sort of a four, it's a grid of four. So it has a musical note in the upper right and below that musical. note is a percentage sign, then to the left of that percentage sign is an ampersand.

And then above that is the weird one that I don't know if I've ever seen this before. I don't understand it. It looks like an equals sign, but the bottom equals sign line has a thing sticking out of it that makes that look. look like a T? Yeah. So it's like a T with a top. T with a top, sure. So according to Emojipedia, that is the Japanese postal mark. Huh!

I don't know. I'm not sure. But that's what Emojipedia refers to it as. And this whole emoji is referred to as the input symbol for symbols. Okay. I have to admit, I only partially understand. I think it's like maybe this is a key command. shortcut thing that you would hit if you wanted to type a symbol as opposed to typing a number or a letter? Oh.

Oh, okay. Emojipedia says intended to be used on a software keyboard or other input screen to enable symbol input as opposed to alphabetical or numeric input.

But what we can agree on is that, understandably, this is it makes sense that this would not be a popular emoji. But before that. There was a period in time where the tramway, the aerial tramway, was the least used emoji for quite a while. And this got some transportation enthusiasts. in a tizzy because they wanted to sort of save the tramway emoji from being the least used emoji. There was a spinoff Twitter account called Ariel Tramway Enthusiast.

And it says, you know, tramway hate will not be tolerated here. Some fans of other emoji have taken notice of this account. Just know this is a tramway only zone. Wow. Yep. There was a group that took off called the New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens. They called themselves Num Tots. which stands for New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens. Obviously. They took to Twitter in support of the aerial tramway. So there was a sort of...

effort to give the aerial tramway emoji a new prominence on social media back in 2018. But it's not until this second attempt now on... YouTube shorts, or I'm sure this guy posts on, you know, TikTok and other mediums as well, but it's this newer 2025, seven years later attempt after the aerial tramway is... was likely no longer the least popular emoji by a couple years, according to the Twitter account. But what is actually the least popular emoji?

I don't think anyone can say that because even this least popular emoji Twitter account was only measuring on Twitter. And we're not in a post Twitter. I mean, we are in a post Twitter, but we're not in a post. X world, but it does feel like, you know, social media is a whole different ballgame these days. Yeah, it's interesting to think about. Number one, love a tramway. Big fan. Do you like a tramway? I do and I don't. I'm afraid of heights. I'm afraid of heights. Okay, fair, fair, fair.

I'm not anti-Tramway. Can't you just imagine yourself in Switzerland sipping a vegan hot chocolate going up the mountain? Yes, I've been on, I like a funicular, which I know is not a tramway, but I will go on these things even though they make me nervous because I know that they give you an experience and a literal perspective that you wouldn't have otherwise.

Wait, a funicular? Yeah. You don't know a funicular? All I know is that when you said that, I just thought of that song that's like, funiculi, funicula, funiculi, funicula. And is that connected to funicular? Is that what they actually say in that song? I think so. Well, a funicular is like... It's like a picture of a single little train car, like a little train nugget going up a rail, up a mountain.

That's a funicular. Train nugget. I think we should rename it train nugget. I mean, funicular is pretty good. I'll also say that while looking into this, I happened upon the deadline for the Unicode Consortium's... new emoji submissions. So I think we touched on this in a previous episode that in order to have a new emoji, you have to submit an application to the Unicode Consortium, this nonprofit that oversees.

All of the emojis. And their deadline is July 31st, everyone. Oh, dude. If you have an emoji idea. You got to submit that idea before July 31st. Get that train nugget emoji in there now. Whatever you do. I kind of want listeners to send us... their favorite just hit us over email or comment on our subreddit with just Like the single or maybe a couple of your favorite underutilized emoji. Yeah. What's your campaign? What would your campaign for an emoji be about? What emoji do you think?

Is underutilized. Right. Yeah. Deserves the aerial tramway treatment. I'm into it. Send us your emojis. Send us your emojis. Your emojis.

Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. This episode was co-hosted by myself, Ben Giff Johnson. And me, Anne-Marie Giff-Sievertson. It was produced... By a train nugget pushing up that mountain, Franny Monahan. Our editor is Meg Kramer. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski. The rest of our team is Dean Russell, Grace Tatter. our managing producer, Samata Joshi, and our production manager, Paul Vykus.

If you have an untold history, an unsolved mystery, some other wild story from the internet that you want us to tell, and of course, an emoji that you want to create, that you want to promote, that you want to platform, hit us up. Endless Thread at WBUR.org.