In addition to the usual “like” button, users will now see four other ways to react to a tweet: a thinking/confused emoji, a teary-eyed and sad emoji, one that’s cry-laughing, and a clapping emoji for cheering. The only emotion missing from the lineup, in earnest, is an angry emoji, much like the one from Facebook’s Reaction lineup.
— J (@jtwdesign) September 9, 2021 One of the designers of this new communication method justifies the development by saying that the “like” reaction is way too overburdened with covering a wide array of emotions from general support to disbelief. To narrow down the choices for this reaction set, Twitter looked at several data points including one-word replies, commonly-used emojis, and emotions on the platform that resonated across cultures. It’s not just the angry face that’s missing; the reaction experiment excludes any sort of negative emotions — not counting the sad emoji, which carries the connotation of empathy rather than the potential vitriol that could come from a “dislike” button.
This isn’t the first time the social media giant has tested emoji reactions. Their first try was in 2015 when some users found that a developer had built the ability to react using a multitude of different emojis, including snooze, annoyed, and even the “100” emoji. This of course never got officially released, but it seems that the new focused set might actually have a chance of being implemented. (Source: @jtwdesign/Twitter)
