Mixed Signals · No. 28

What does “🙄” mean?

From Jules, your brother, after you reminded him again about the money he owes you

🙄

It could mean

PorcupineI’d read it a few ways:

Annoyed, and wanting you to drop it
Joking around
Embarrassed, and working on it

Nobody could know from the words alone.

What was going on

The story behind this one appears here once the week to play it is over. Play it on Mixed Signals to see it now.

Ask before you answer

Text loses tone, so a short message can read harsher, or softer, than it was meant. Before you answer, ask what they meant. That’s Check before assuming, one of the principles Porcupine is built on.

What research says

When people described 1,289 emoji shown without any text, only 16 of them meant the same thing to everyone. Most fell somewhere between clear and anyone’s guess.

Częstochowska, J., Gligorić, K., Peyrard, M., Mentha, Y., Bień, M., Grütter, A., Auer, A., Xanthos, A., & West, R. (2022). On the context-free ambiguity of emoji. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 16(1), 1388–1392.

Got a real text like this? Run a Quills Check.

Paste it. I’ll show you a few ways it could be read, and what you could ask instead of guessing. Writing your own? Switch to “I’m sending it” and I’ll show you if the quills are up.

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Find the words with Porcupine

The Quills Check helps with one text. Porcupine helps with the whole conversation, from what you ask through their reply. It’s coming soon, and we’ll let you know when it’s ready.

Get early access Play today’s message

Every message and story in Mixed Signals is made up.