Culture

The Least-Used Emoji War Is The Most Wholesome Conflict Of 2018

Choose a side: Aerial Tramway Emoji or Latin capital letters Emoji.

by Patrick Lenton  14 November 2018
least-used emoji 2018

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2018 has been a year of conflict, of fiercely contested ideals, of brother turning on brother, of babies eating babies: but who would have guessed that the greatest battle of all would be between the two least-used emoji.

Everyone has a favourite emoji — if you’re a creep, it’s that smiley with the wink and the tongue out. If you’re a legend, it’s a thumbs up. If you’re a cat, it’s probably the cat emoji. But few people think, or care, about the least-used emoji.

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It’s a fascinating concept — there’s hundreds of emojis, and some of them are so niche and weird, you struggle to imagine a situation where you’d ever use them. In fact, such is the obscurity of some emojis, that there’s a bot dedicated to tracking which is the ultimate winner in the least-used emoji race.

It’s called the Least Used Emoji Bot, and its mission statement is: “Dedicated to informing the masses on which emoji is the least used.” It does this by checkingΒ emojitracker hourly and using computer science and tweets its results at least daily.

It’s a cute little concept — it’s nice to know what emoji nobody is using.

But that’s where things get interesting, because the battle for the least-used emoji has taken off.

The Least-Used Emoji War of 2018

There are two main contenders in the least-used emoji war — the Aerial Tramway Emoji 🚑 and theΒ Input symbol for Latin capital lettersΒ πŸ” .

Throughout 2018, it has been a neck and neck race between the two for the title of the least-used emoji, with the third contestant in the race being the dark horse known as Non-potable water symbol emoji, which had an 80-day streak back in May as the least-used emoji, before dropping off.

However, after the reign of the Non-potable water symbol ended, we spent the majority of the middle of the year living under the benign rule of the Aerial Tramway. Look at it up there, ferrying people from one mountain to another, maybe to hit the powder in some European skiing town. Sick.

It was a long period of Aerial tramwaying, and it was a beautiful time.

However, this is where things get interesting. On July 22nd, out of NOWHERE came the Input symbol for Latin capital letters, and our tiny worlds were shaken. But here’s the thing — it wasn’t an accident. People were campaigning to get their beloved Aerial Tramway Emoji out of the least-used emoji category.

People went off! They wanted to save that trundling little dude.

Battle lines were drawn!

But recently (yesterday), the forces of the accidentally maligned Input symbol for Latin capital letters, or ISLCL, managed to rally and force Aerial Tramway back into the loser seat. A shocking upset!

Since then, it’s been a constant battle back and forth, with neither emoji gaining prominence for more than a few hours. It’s nailbiting stuff! The battleΒ rages as we speak.

Although a bunch of centrists have started organising to try and rescue BOTH emojis from the pile. Maybe the long-forgotten Non-Potable Water Symbol will rise again?

Tag Yourself, I’m Aerial Tramway

I think the thing I like about this war is that it’s inherently wholesome.

Neither emoji is really worse than its competitor, and taking sides essentially means nothing. In this time of bipartisan squabbling, of fierce political differences, it’s nice to just try and rescue anΒ emoji from being the least-used of its colourful brethren.

I would say that I’m an Aerial Tramway Emoji stan — I like to think of mountains, of gliding gloriously above my competitors, of being useful.

I feel like Latin Input Symbol is maybe a little bit fusty, a little bit elitist. A dead language. But then again, they are the underdogs, and they rallied to support a vaguely unloveable emoji — I kinda love that too.

Maybe there is no wrong side, and the joy is in simply creating a supportive community that rallies around a symbol, a figurehead.

Or maybe theΒ Input Symbol For Latin Capital Letter camp must be crushed. Long live the Aerial Tramway!

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Patrick Lenton is the Entertainment Editor at Junkee. He tweets @patricklenton.