If you’re a Twitter user, you’ve likely seen them - accounts with various emojis in their names. Some are seemingly easy to understand - flags indicating they’re from a certain country and proud of it. Others are much harder to understand if you’re new to the platform or simply out of the loop.

The background behind this trend is simple - these digital bumper stickers (many of these emojis are used to indicate support for political causes) are copying twitter’s use of a checkmark to indicate a verified account. The trend started around the 2016 presidential election and has only grown.

If, like me, you’ve struggled to understand what all of the emojis in people’s Twitter handles mean in the past, hopefully, this post will help. I’ll try to break down what different emojis in Twitter headers mean below and I’ll continue to update this list as I come across different ones. Important caveat: Sometimes lightning bolts, roses, or anything else just mean they happen to like the thing in question - their tweets will probably tell you pretty quickly!

Common Twitter name emojis and what they mean

🌹 = You may have found yourself asking: what does the rose emoji mean on Twitter? A rose indicates that the account is part of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) movement. Sometimes used as a more general indicator that someone is a leftist as red roses have a long history of use by labor movements and social democrat groups across the world. This Twitter trend began after the launch of the Bernie Sanders for President campaign and the DSA asked their member to use the symbol in their Twitter bio or name to indicate support for socialism. Those against socialism and the DSA sometimes use the wilted rose🥀.

👌= the okay symbol no longer means “ok”. It’s been taken over by white supremacists, some of which are covertly using the symbol to indicate their support for white nationalism. This nasty alt-right tribe has also used the frog (indicating Pepe the frog) 🐸 and the glass of milk 🥛 emoji at different times to indicate their “white identity”. and racism. This has shifted rapidly and will continue to do so - ❌ is another one of their trends.

🩸🦷= Warren Democrat and a supporter of the vision of big structural change offered by Elizabeth Warren during her 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary Campaign. Used to symbolize her “Blood and Teeth” line

😷= This one is pretty obvious; it’s meant to encourage people to wear a face mask during the COVID-19 pandemic to help keep other community members safe.

🗽= The lady liberty emoji (the Statue of Liberty) is used to indicate support for immigration (and for a while was also common among Elizabeth Warren supporters due to her use of liberty green for her campaign brand). Mashable writes that “It's one of several emoji that stand for anti-Trump sentiments and might be the closest thing to a #Resistance emoji.” Sometimes also used by libertarians.

☂️= During the #BlackLivesMatter protests in the summer of 2020, the purple umbrella became a symbol of support for protestors in the Seattle area after iconic standoffs with the Seattle Police Department featuring the use of umbrellas, a tactic copied from Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protestors.

❄️= Snowflakes is a common insult by many conservative commentators for liberals and progressives and many have taken to repurposing the term as a badge of pride.

🌐 or 🌎 = These have indicated support for globalism, and often for neo-liberal economic policies. This is another “take back the symbol's power” movement, after Trump’s derogatory use of the term globalist.

🏘️ = YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) / Pro-housing. Used by Urbanists to denote support of dense housing development and urbanism principles. Another pro-urbanism symbol is the avocado emoji 🥑 which is used to indicate YIMBY or opposition to NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard). You’ll also see other variations on city emojis 🏙🌆.

🌈 or 🏳️‍🌈 = This one is probably pretty obvious, the rainbow and the rainbow flag have become an internationally recognized symbol of gay pride and LGBTQ+ social movements and indicates the same here.

🛴= Micromobility advocates and supporters of e-scooters often use the scooter emoji to indicate their passion for the topic.

🚄or🚍 = Public transportation supporters - you’ll also see the train emojis🚆 and other mass transit emojis used to indicate support for transit and other forms of transportation.

🧦 = Sock Twitter is a smaller mini-trend used to indicate people who identify as social democrats. Socks are used because Social Democrats is often shortened to “SocDem”, pronounced as “Sock-Dem”, and hence.. socks 🧦.

🌊 = The blue wave is a symbol of a “Resister” crowd of anti-Trump Twitter. Symbolizing the blue wave they’re working towards or believe in (a wave of Democrats winning across the country during elections).

📎 = The Paper Clip is another anti-trump / #Resist emoji meant to show solidarity with minorities in peril and with victims of hate crimes.

🔶= Liberal Democrats in the UK have taken to using the orange diamond emoji to indicate who they are and their support for Lib Dems and the party.

🐘 or 🐎 = Elephants are used to indicate Republicans and Donkeys for Democrats. Green heart or sunflower emojis are commonly used by the US Green Party. 💚🌻 For other, more obscure political emoji’s there’s a great field guide.

✊ = Indicates worker solidarity and support of labor and social justice movements. Variations of the Black skin tone raised fist ✊🏿 to specifically show support of Black power movements and Black Lives Matter, often abbreviated to BLM.

🧢 = A Blue Cap indicates an Andrew Yang supporter or Universal Basic Income (UBI) supporter.

☭ or 🚩 = The Hammer and Sickle or Red Flag shows someone identifies as a Communist. Conversely, you’ll sometimes see helicopter emojis used by anti-communists. 🚁

🌺 = Supporter of Tulsi Gabbard (former Democratic member of Congress and Democratic Presidential Primary Candidate for the 2020 cycle)

🌲 = sometimes environmental support, or in some cases, eco-fascist member of the “Pine Tree Gang” a loosely connected online subculture, that promotes a blend of white nationalism and impending environmental catastrophe

⚖️ = An indicator that someone is Libertarian

Ⓐ or 🏴 = The Encircled A or Black Flag are commonly used to indicate Anarchists. Anarchism supporters also sometimes use the black heart emoji 🖤.

I’m on Twitter.. too often, if you’re also active there please don’t hesitate to reach out, I’m always happy to talk technology, politics, and society. You can also message me on Twitter to let me know if which Twitter header emojis I missed. You can find me @ConorBronsdon.

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