Emoji Use Across The States

Nevada likes eggplant. Oklahoma’s into ghosts. And Vermont is all about the poop.

That’s the somewhat unscientific conclusions of SwiftKey, which decided to publicise its app by looking at the pattern of emoji use among its customers in different states.

Contrary to some reports, the map above is not a depiction of the most popular emoji in each state. (As the company itself has explained, were that the case the country would be swept by hearts.)

Instead its an average of two relative measures. One is how frequently an emoji is used in the state compared with the national average — in other words, which emoji is disproportionately popular in the state. The second measure is the same thing but with the figures adjusted to take account of overall emoji use in each state.

The interactive version of the map shows the five most disproportionately used emoji in each state, which is where Vermont’s fecal obsession is revealed. It’s questionable how much reliance you can place on the findings however: North Dakota residents are apparently far more likely than average to post a camel emoji, which seems an unlikely requirement for relating local events.

As part of the gimmick, the SwiftKey app now offers to analyse your emoji use and let you know which state your pattern best matches. It will also tell you the single emoji you use the most, and the one that you use disproportionately often compared with users as a whole.