Instagram adds personalized emoji shortcuts

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Scream face! Now it’s even easier to use emoji on Instagram.

Instagram rolled out personalized emoji shortcuts on Thursday. Now, when you click the comment button below a post, a bar appears above the text field with the eight emojis you most frequently use on Instagram. My customized bar includes… a cucumber??

But, uh, anyway, if you’ve never used emoji on Instagram before (who are you?), the bar preloads with the following emojis: ❤️???????. 

Instagram released the feature wide today after testing. The emoji bar doesn’t appear when you comment in response to a story or in DMs.

But in the comments, oh baby, that’s where you can let your fingers fly with those frequently used lil’ faces. Any scroll through the ‘gram reveals that people are already using emojis a ton on Instagram, in captions and in comments. But this tool makes it even easier.

Perhaps, too easy. A commonly known strategy for people looking to grow their Instagram account is to comment on other users’ posts as much as possible. That can lead to emoji spam, since commenting with a heart or flame emoji takes literally zero time, effort, or thought. It’s the equivalent of making a comment in a class or meeting just to show you’ve participated, when you really have nothing substantial to contribute at all.

An Instagram spokesperson clarified that pressing an emoji in the bar doesn’t automatically post that piece of personality-filled unicode. Instead, it puts the emoji into your comment field, where you can add text, or — wait for it — more emojis.

“It’s not meant to replace the act of commenting, but make it easier for you to add emoji to your comments,” the spokesperson said.

So this isn’t a creepily predictive AI-autofill feature, like Gmail rolled out in the new Gmail. It’s just meant to make what we’re already doing — commenting with loads of expressive ideograms — more seamless.

Let’s make sure to not get stuck in an emoji rut, though. At current count, there are 2,823 emoji out there for your personal enjoyment. So if you’re going to express yourself most commonly via pictograph, let’s at least get ~creative~.