Mixed Signals · No. 18

What does “🙂” mean?

From Dana, your manager, after you asked for Friday off

🙂

It could mean

PorcupineI’d read it a few ways:

Yes, and busy
Annoyed, and being polite
Not sure yet

Nobody could know from the words alone.

What was going on

Dana approved it and was in back-to-back meetings. That was all.

This message and its story are made up. Real messages don’t come with the story.

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

In a survey, people looking at the very same emoji disagreed about whether it was positive, neutral or negative about a quarter of the time, and more often when it was drawn differently on different phones.

Miller, H., Thebault-Spieker, J., Chang, S., Johnson, I., Terveen, L., & Hecht, B. (2016). “Blissfully happy” or “ready to fight”: Varying interpretations of emoji. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 10(1), 259–268.

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.