What do the Snapchat emojis mean? The rise of the emojis
Emojis have been filtering into our everyday communications for the best part of a decade. The familiar little icons are a great way of adding a little bit of extra meaning to our messages without having to add extra words.
Available across Apple, Android, Linux, Microsoft, Chrome OS and major social media sites, there are now 2,823 recognised emojis available.
With 5 billion of them being sent every day on Facebook Messenger alone, emojis can be used to express happiness, sadness, excitement, love and a huge range of other emotions and actions.
Despite the wide range of emojis available, we tend to stick to a small selection, with hearts, tears of joy, thumbs up and smiling faces being the most popular selections worldwide in 2017.
Snapchat emojis
As World Emoji Day approaches on 17th July, a little bit of research around what people are searching for about emojis showed that many still struggle to understand the icons shown next to user’s names on Snapchat. We’ve developed this simple guide about why these emojis appear and what you can do to get them.
In 2015, Snapchat introduced an update which replaced their previous ‘Best Friends’ feature. Users could now see a range of emojis appearing next to their friends’ names. Each one standing for something about the frequency, pattern and timing of their interactions with that individual. Before the update, Snapchat allowed all users to see ‘Best Friends’ (the most interacted with users) of all people they were connected with on the app. This caused some privacy issues, so the emojis were introduced instead.
Emojis appearing next to friends’ names in your contact list are now visible only to you. That means you don’t have to be worried about people seeing who you’re interacting with, whilst sending photo messages to your friends.
Snapchat emoji guide
We’ve investigated all the emojis that appear next to friends’ names on Snapchat. Here’s what they mean.
The Yellow Heart Emoji
The yellow heart appears next to the person in your friend list who ranks as your #1 Best Friend! This is the person who you interact with most frequently in your friend list.
The Red Heart Emoji
If you stay Best Friends with someone on Snapchat for two weeks, your yellow heart becomes a red one. If you want to upgrade to this make sure to keep that Snapchat friendship flourishing with regular Snapchats to your bestie. You must be each other’s Best Friend on the app to upgrade to the red heart.
The Pink Hearts Emoji
If pink hearts appear next to someone on your Snapchat it means that you are long-term best mates on the app. Your red heart will be swapped for the two pink ones if you can maintain frequent snap exchanges for at least two months.
The Smiley Emoji
Smiley emojis appear next to your Best Friends. These are the people who you exchange snaps with the most. To get this emoji to appear next to certain people, increase the amount you interact with them.
The Sunglasses Emoji
When the sunglasses emoji appears next to a person on your friend list, this means you share a Best Friend on the app. Essentially, you are both exchanging a lot of snaps with the same person.
The Smirking Emoji
This cheeky little chap appears next to someone when you rank as one of their Best Friends, but they don’t rank as one of yours. It shows that someone is sending you more snaps than you send them.
The Grimacing Emoji
Grimacing faces appear next to people when you have the awkward experience of sharing a #1 Best Friend. This means that you’re both sending the most photos to the same person.
The Fire Emoji
Fire emojis appear next to friends when you have a Snapstreak with that person. A Snapstreak is where you have exchanged snaps (not chatted) every day for at least three consecutive days. A number will appear next to the fire to tell you how long your Snapstreak has lasted for. For a Snapstreak to continue you must both send a snap every 24 hours.
The 100 Emoji
If you and your friend can keep your Snapstreak going for long enough, the 100 Emoji will appear next to your fire. This happens when you’ve exchanged snaps with that person for 100 consecutive days.
The Hourglass Emoji
Snapchat uses the hourglass emoji to tell you when your Snapstreak is in danger of timing out. The hourglass will appear next to a contact who you have a Snapstreak with, if you haven’t interacted in 20 hours. It means that you have four hours to exchange snaps with that person, or else you’ll lose your streak.
The Baby Emoji
When you get a new Snapchat friend, the baby face appears next to their name in your friend list. It’s a prompt for you to engage with your new friend and build your Snapchat conversation with them, so you can get other emojis. The baby emoji will stay next to a new friend’s name for around two weeks.
The Gold Star Emoji
A gold star will appear next to a friend’s name when someone has replayed one of their snaps in the last 24 hours. Essentially, this tells you that whatever they have been sharing was so interesting, someone wanted to watch it twice!
The Sparkles Emoji
When you are in a Snapchat group, (meaning there are multiple participants in your conversation), this emoji will appear next to snaps that are sent. It’s a handy indicator that helps make sure you don’t accidentally send a snap meant for one person to a whole group.
The Birthday Cake Emoji
On your contacts’ birthdays, a birthday cake will appear next to their name, reminding you to send them a special message. The birthday cake will only appear on the day that the contact entered as their birthday on the app.
Celebrity emojis
The only other time you will see emojis, other than the ones above, next to Snapchat user names is when they’re on a celebrity’s verified account. Once verified, celebrities are able to choose an emoji to appear next to their name that they think symbolises them, their personality, or their brand. Some big names have chosen the emojis below.
NB. Numerous celebrities can use the same emoji, so some of them appear on multiple usernames.
Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian’s Snapchat name is followed by the peach emoji. The peach is a reference to her world-famous, stunning figure. Interestingly, research has shown that only 7% of usage of the peach emoji is referencing the fruit.
Lethal Bizzle
One of the first celebrities to customise his verified account, Lethal Bizzle chose to denote his official Snapchat with a bomb emoji.
Chrissy Teigen
Known for her quick-wit on social media, particularly Twitter, Chrissy Teigen chose to customise her Snapchat name with a pizza slice. She is not the only celebrity to use this emoji, Bella Hadid and Martin Garrix both also express a fondness for the food through their Snapchat emojis.
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