The use of a red flag means a warning sign or sign, or “something that indicates or draws attention to a problem, danger or irregularity”. The dictionary points out that the first use of the red flag as a noun dates back to 1748. And in today’s hybrid language of social media, thanks to the red flag emoji, Twitter users can rate a tweet with the symbol, or even use a whole row of them to show that something is problematic.
And, if you use Twitter or WhatsApp, surely in the last two weeks you have seen at least one message from a contact in which this / a put a string of red flags. Why is everyone now using this emoji on Twitter, and also at their discretion?
The Red Flag emoji on Twitter
Lately, Twitter has become a sea of red flags, all of them alerting users to a wide range of things: From men to avoid or moments to worry to fictional characters and pop culture, the trend is going everywhere. Mind you, with a bunch of red flag emojis following it. It’s easy, it’s fun, and it even says a lot about the user based on their message.
According to sites like Cnet O Mary Sue, the trend originally started on the Black Twitter or black Twitter – a community consisting mostly of African-American users – to share the red flags in dating. And like many Twitter trends, it morphed into a fad without anyone really knowing its exact origin.
What do those flags mean
According to Twitter, during the past week there was an increase of 455% in tweets that use the emoji in the United States. On Tuesday, October 12, they registered 1.5 million tweets with the red flag emoji worldwide.
From people warning about the worrying behavior of a potential date, to sports, food, movies, music, politics and other things that seem problematic, its use is simple: You put the date first, sharing something that you know is a red flag or something that should be a red flag as for its content, and then you simply post a series of red flag emojis after the text to review it.
Long-lasting or fleeting fashion?
And the topics to choose from are practically limitless: things like someone who is always online but takes time to respond to text messages; someone who says he’s still friends with his ex, or that “he is all day without talking to me “… Their use, scope and understanding are such that we even see accounts of brands that have adopted them – for example Netflix itself, orto MTV saying not “I can keep up with Pop music.”
At the moment, although we continue to see them on Twitter above all, it seems that the peak of popularity of this new fashion / trend was last week. Now the question remains whether it will become one of those types of messages that remain and we use from time to time, or will it go totally out of style in a few more days / weeks.
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