What do you get when you mix the grimacing and hot emoji faces? The same expression on everyone’s sweaty mug during this week’s heatwave.
The best thing you can do to avoid the dog days of climate change is stay inside, drink plenty of fluids, and follow Emoji Mashup Bot on Twitter.
Launched last week by Louan Bengmah—an 18-year-old student and web developer—the account tweets a new emoji fusion every hour.
As explained through a series of handy visuals, the bot selects two distinct emojis from an ever-growing list (to which followers are encouraged to contribute).
Each icon has been disassembled into four pieces: foundation, eyes, mouth, and detail. The automated selection order is based on Bengmah’s own algorithm.
Once all elements are chosen, software from the Processing Foundation merges everything together to generate an entirely new emoji.
“Now feel free to share, caption, download, and re-use every great emoji this bot is making,” the account said.
Online for only a week, Emoji Mashup Bot already boasts more than 116,000 followers (and counting).
With each new social media milestone, Bengmah adds more characters; on Tuesday, he teased a possible third emoji accessory to “add more diversity and make new exclusive” icons.
The tweets read like a math equation: “Emoji 1” + “Emoji 2” = “Emoji 3” image. None of the fresh faces have names; you can call them what you’d like.
It’s hard to believe some of these don’t already exist—like confounded sneezing, zipper-mouth baby, smiling poop, angry partying, surprised star-eyes, and a personal favorite: horrified cat with monocle.
Don’t be surprised if Unicode’s 2020 collection includes some of Bengmah’s bot creations.
This year’s selection, known as Emoji 12.0, goes heavy on inclusivity with more skin tone/gender combinations and disability-themed images. Apple and Google are both expected to launch their own interpretations this autumn for iOS 13 and Android Q, respectively.
More on Geek.com:
- Ford Secretly Designed a Pickup Truck Emoji
- Eat Your Feelings With Hershey’s Limited-Edition Chocolate Emoji Bar
- Number of Emoji References in U.S. Court Cases Growing ‘Exponentially’
