Sean Spicer just gave his first official address at the White House as Trump’s press secretary. CNN is streaming the event via Facebook Live, which offers Facebook users the chance to react via emoji: hearts, thumbs-up, tears, laughter, and a red-faced angry emoji. As a user reacts via emoji, their chosen pictograph floats across the bottom of the screen in real time.
The briefing has been underway about a half an hour and so far 21,000 people (and counting) have weighed in via emoji. The most used image … the angry face. Which means, as Spicer talks to the press a steady stream of pissed-off cartoon faces are rolling beneath his face in perhaps the most perfect, if unintended, use of this particular Facebook technology.
As of publication, the emoji-use breakdown was around 9,800 angry faces to 8,000 thumbs up, with that gap only continuing to widen. Shout-out to the 500 people who opted for the crying emoji, which I imagine POTUS might call the “Sad!” emoji.
