The Most Confusing Emojis

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Which emoji are most likely to be assigned different, incompatible meanings by different readers? The question takes on a different character depending on scope—international audiences read some images in different ways depending on cultural background. But even just in America, there’s a lot of variation.

To answer this question, Preply released the results from their study of 2,021 Americans, refining a prior study they’d made earlier. I would dispute the rankings of #4, #8, and #9 based on the data, though.

Most of the meanings assigned to “fearful face” can overlap—if you’re shocked, it may be by horrible news, and shocked people are often fearful as well. So I’d argue that one doesn’t deserve top-ten status.

On the other end, I think two of these emojis should be considered more confusing than the rest on the basis that their official names (and thus, recommended meanings) seem mismatched to what most people see in them. “Persevering face” and “sleepy” have names completely at odds with their prevailing interpretations—frustration and sadness, respectively.

Looking at their designs across various platforms, it’s not hard to see why. I associate perseverence with iron-willed determination, but the “perseverence” emoji designs look badly pained, as if they’re about to crack under the pressure.

“Sleepy” uses a nose-bubble to show a face that’s already asleep or most of the way there. This image is rooted in a Japanese cartooning tradition, and while Japanese cartoons have reached a lot of American audiences, they’re not so culturally dominant over here that signifiers like this are readable to all Americans.

Contrast with the “sleeping face” emoji, which uses cartooning that Americans recognize much more easily.

The confusion isn’t likely to die out as the next wave of emoji join the culture. Preply correspondents had a few thoughts about some incoming emoji, too:

Word lovers know about “contronyms,” words like “oversight” and “cleave” that can have opposite or nearly opposite meanings depending on context. Are we ready as a society for visual contronyms? Guess we’ll find out.