Everyone uses emojis in electronic messages but how do you think netizens express COVID-19 in emojis these days? We are asking because apparently, it isn’t just the people’s sex toy consumption or porn viewing habits that had changed during this age of coronavirus but also their use of emojis says emojipedia.

Yep, you’ve heard it right! Ever since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency due to COVID-19, coronavirus has naturally become a hot topic on social media. COVID-19 discussions trended left, right, and center, as did the use of certain emojis specifically the ‘Face with Medical Mask’ and the ‘Microbe’ emojis as these two were the most used by netizens when looking to reference or describe coronavirus in emoji.

But how did emojipedia come about this conclusion? 

Emojipedia said they collected a sample of 49,621 unique tweets between March 7 to March 8, 2020 which contained 12 health-related emojis that may best represent “coronavirus” or “COVID.” The 12 emojis were the following: Face with Medical Mask, Nauseated Face, Face Vomiting, Sneezing Face, Face with Thermometer, Face with Head-Bandage, Ambulance, Pill, Syringe, Microbe, Soap, and Sponge. Their assessment later showed the particular emojis that trended when describing or referencing coronavirus were found to be the Face with Medical Mask at 35.82% and the Microbe at 42.09%. They were followed by Sneezing Face (5.07%), Nauseated Face (5.38%), Pill (3.67%), and Face Vomiting (2.85%) as the ones that “most commonly correlate with discussion of Coronavirus or COVID” online.

But which emojis were most frequently used when people discuss “Coronavirus” or “COVID-19?” Emojipedia used a different methodology for that. They “collected and analyzed over 200,000 tweets across multiple languages” discussing or mentioning the words “Coronavirus” or “COVID-19” and found that the following are the most popular emojis used in online discussions of this topic: Face with Tears of Joy, Rolling on the Floor Laughing, Face with Medical Mask, Thinking Face, and Microbe.

But why the use of laughing emojis though? Emojipedia theorized that “Tweets about coronavirus are no different to broader Twitter discussions, of which laughing emojis are consistently popular” and secondly, it’s because “people are specifically joking and making light of coronavirus-related news.” Lastly, Emojipedia said that it could be a combination of the two reasons mentioned above or it could be because of other factors. Read their study in full here and you may check here for the complete list of coronavirus-related emojis.

But laughter in the time of pandemic, is this really the right time for that when COVID-19 is a serious matter? Apparently it is. Today, now more than ever, people need laughter as this helps the brain relax and more importantly, humor can help fight coronavirus anxiety, says Time Magazine

Having said all that, we leave you today with this hand-washing advice in emoji style: 

Keep safe and stay healthy, guys. Happy weekend! 

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