What do the emojis on Snapchat mean?

A quick guide to the new judgemental animated faces

Andrew Griffin
Tuesday 07 April 2015 10:31 BST
Comments
Hundreds of thousands of Snapchat images were leaked In October 2014
Hundreds of thousands of Snapchat images were leaked In October 2014 (Flickr)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Snapchat has replaced its “best friends” feature with emojis — but the code of the little faces can be tough to work out. The little faces after your friend’s names each indicate how often you’re talking to them, and how often they’re talking to other people.

To help you navigate through the complex code of animated yellow faces, here’s a quick guide to what each of them means.

The all-important six smiley faces. Image: Emojipedia
The all-important six smiley faces. Image: Emojipedia

Yellow heart: This will appear after the name of your number one best friend, the person who you send the most snaps to who also sends their highest number of snaps to you.

Grimacing face (has its teeth out): Indicates that your number one best friend is also their number one best friend.

Face with sunglasses (AKA “cool emoji”): One of your best friends is one of their best friends. This means that you both send lots of snaps to a certain person.

Smirking face (AKA suggestive, flirting or sexual face emoji): Someone who sends you a lot of snaps, but that you don’t send a lot of snaps back to.

Smiling face (a normal smile with rosy cheeks): A best friend, but not your number one best friend.

Fire (AKA flame emoji or hot emoji): This shows that you have begun a “snapstreak”, by sending this person snaps on consecutive days. If this shows, Snapchat will tell you how many days you’ve kept up the streak.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in