Why Africa is the laughing continent
Out of the seven continents in the world, Africa has been ranked the most laugh-filled of them all.
The laughing emoji is the most popular in most countries in Africa, a new report shows.
Out of the seven continents in the world, Africa has been ranked the most laugh-filled of them all.
The rise of social media platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook, and Instagram has seen an increase in the use of emoticons or ‘emojis’ which have become additional features to the written form of communication.
Even though there are varieties of emojis to choose, the laughing emoji has over the years been the most commonly used emoji globally.
While other continents have over the years gradually adopted the use of other emojis, Africans seem to be gravely addicted to the use of the face with tears of joy.
Despite the worldly belief that Africa is the least happy continent in the world, Africans continue to show their high levels of humour using the particular digital pictogram.
Emojis introduced a new age of visual language dialect that has been fascinatingly embraced by different generations over the years and interpreted in diverse yet similar ways.
Over 3,000 emojis
Emoji use has grown from a playful way to illustrate a simple joke to a language of its own, and it’s a key way we communicate our emotions and feelings online.
There are over 3,000 emojis in use but some seem to appear a little more than others across the interweb.
A survey done by Crossword Solver where 9 million geotagged tweets were analysed to see which emojis are most common in different countries revealed that the laughing/ face with tears of joy (😂) and the red heart (❤️) are the first and second most used emojis worldwide.
According to the survey, the face with tears of joy (😂) otherwise known as rolling on the floor laughing is the most common emoji in 75 countries.
Africa was noted to overwhelmingly favour the face with tears of joy emoji which is the most used in 37 out of 54 African countries.
The red heart follows in second and tops just three countries in Africa. The rest of the African countries prefer using their national flags.
Emojis are not a universal language, and as stated earlier, different emojis are interpreted differently by different people. For Instance, in China, the clapping hands emoji (👏) suggests “making love,” while sending thumbs up (👍) to a Greek may be taken offensively.
Similarly, across Latin America, (🤘) isn’t just for metalheads. In this context, it is an indication of adultery.
