Your state's favorite emoji is kind of embarrassing
Some states are just naturally the heart-eyed smiley face types, while others prefer eggplants and poo. Not judging!
- Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year" award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
I'm not the sort to tack emojis onto messages -- or when I am, a standard :) usually works just fine.
But enough Americans are emoji enthusiasts that Reviews.org, a home services and products review site, was able to research which emojis are favored by various US states.
The big winner for sheer number of searches was the Smiling Face With Heart Eyes, and it was also the most searched by seven states -- Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin. The Thumb's Up symbol (even I admit this is useful), proved popular in Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Montana, and came in second. The Face With Tears of Joy (I always think of this as the Sweaty Face) took third.
Naturally, the Smiling Pile of Poo made the list, top-searched in Nevada, Oklahoma, Iowa and West Virginia. South Carolina likes the eggplant (um, for culinary reasons probably), and Texas is on fire with the flame symbol. New York has the see-no-evil-monkey, which I never knew existed but actually does seem kind of useful, with all the I-didn't-see-that goings-on of the Big Apple.
The site used a combination of Google searches, polls and Instagram data to determine the entertaining (if not exactly scientific) results. New Hampshire, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota and Delaware didn't offer up enough data to make the list. Sad Face.