Twenty years ago there were no such things in existence; ten years ago they first appeared outside of their native Japan; and the United States has seen their proliferation only in the the last five years or so.  We're talking about emoji's - those graphical-pictures that have come into widespread use in phone texts and social media. Their use is so widespread these days that in 2015, Oxford Dictionaries named the "face with tears" emoji their Word of the Year.

Something that's become so ubiquitous has surely developed usage patterns.  That's the idea behind the research recently done by reviews.org - which informally studied the usage of emojis on Instagram posts from users around the country.  The resulting data determined their popularity in different states.  That data - plotted on a map - outlines "What's Your State's Favorite Emoji?".

So what are the results for Minnesota and Wisconsin?  Interestingly enough, they share the same emoji - the smiley face with heart-eyes.  There's not enough data to determine North Dakota's favorite emoji, but according to the map South Dakota users like the thumbs-up sign.  Meanwhile, Iowa likes the poop emoji and Michigan users prefer the smiley face with a wagging tongue.

MidwestEmojiMap
Reviews.org
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