Discord Server Emoji: A Community Dialect

I — Background

Discord is a popular online chat platform, that started as a tool for video game players to communicate. It acted as a replacement for other preexisting tools like Teamspeak. However, in a relatively short time the combination of powerful moderation tools, easy startup time, and simplicity of use placed it as a popular tool for providing a live environment for many kinds of communities. As of 2017 the platform was receiving roughly 1.5 million new users each week. The in depth analysis of why Discord has seen such success as a home for online communities is an interesting one, but also outside the scope of this essay. Here we are specifically interested in the role of a later addition to Discord’s feature set, custom emojis.
Emojis have been a part of the digital landscape for several years, but rarely have they become part of the way people communicate to the degree found on Discord communities. In a quick test, I looked at 100 of the most recent messages on 3 different servers that I personally use, and an average of 23 either contained emojis or had reactions (a feature where users can “react” with an emote to a message). Part of this is likely due to the way Discord handles emoji through shortcodes, making it easy to place them while typing a message. However, I think that the rapid text format found in a online chat is particularly well suited for emoji. They allow users to convey emotions or tones without a large body of text, a necessary tool in a relatively fast flowing back and forth conversation.
However, all of this is background to the key point of interest, server emoji. Discord allows the moderators of a server to add custom emoji to the server that users can take advantage of. Additionally, users who pay for the premium version of the service can use emoji from one server on any other server. The combination of these two features leads us to some of the interesting dynamics of Discord communication.

II — The custom emoji and its habitat

To understand the degree to which custom emoji are widespread, one only has to look at the chat history for any large Discord server. In a quick check, of the last 95 emoji used on a particular server, 59 were custom. At first glance, the success of server-specific emoji seems strange. They are often used to communicate something that could just as well be said in text, and some fit extremely specific use cases. For example on a server I frequent there exists several emoji with meanings that seem to overlap with Unicode emoji. For example, there exists and emoji named “imscared” which uses a drawn image of a frightened person. However, the Unicode emoji list already includes several emoji that can communicate fear. What additional linguistic work is this emoji doing? I believe that the only way to understand this particular case, and emoji in general, is as a sort of community dialect or lingo.
Members of a server are generally part of the same community, and often servers can form relatively close-knit communities. It’s not unusual on midsize servers for users to recognize almost everyone they see on the server, and to have an idea of where they live. This is very unlike platforms in the tradition of Reddit or Twitter where it is unlikely that you will know a large group of usernames and consider yourself part of a cohesive group. The combination of controlled new user flow as well as the use of voice chat helps to make groups of users feel more closely connected and more willing to invest in the group. If a community can be understood as a group of people with common interest who interact on a regular basis, then it must be the case that Discord servers also can be communities.
Having established that many Discord servers are communities, it follows that these servers may inherit some behaviors common to communities. The existence of accents/dialects/jargon is a commonality across most communities, and follows closely from the linguistic fact that all living languages change. If we consider emoji as part of a community dialect, the way they are created and used becomes more clear. It doesn’t matter if the meanings overlap, because a server specific emoji shows that someone is part of the group and becomes associated with the members of a community. Additionally, a particular emoji takes on certain connotations and subtleties through its use within a community. Pop, soda, and coke all refer to the same thing, but it would be a mistake to think that using one over another is without meaning.
Digital dialects have always existed, but server specific emoji make the creation and evolution of dialects easier and faster.

III — Why emoji

Dialects can be, and usually are, composed of different words and possibly grammar, not pictures. Why have custom emoji become so successful as a community dialect? I would argue that there are a few main keys to their success:
1) Ease of creation
2) Ease of use
3) Ease of evolution
To create a new server emoji, all a moderator needs to do is upload an image and give it a name, a 5 minute process at most. This means a wide variety of new emoji can be added rapidly, giving users a buffet of choices when writing a message. The second point works together with the first point. If a moderator declared 20 new words and their meanings, it would take a long time for users to adopt them. However, an emoji has some degree of inherent meaning due to its pictorial nature, as well as its name. This allows users to find an emoji that seems related to what they are trying to communicate quickly. Finally, factors combine to create an evolutionary process wherein, moderators add a large body of new emoji, users find certain ones that fit the community’s needs, and unused emoji get cycled out by moderators. This ensures that only emoji that are used by the community remain, while also preventing an endless expansion of the number of emoji. As this cycle runs, a server tends to be left with a body of popular emoji that changes less and less over time, allowing every user to gain an understanding of how each emoji is used within the community. This is contingent upon a moderation team that is responsive to the needs of the community, because all emoji are controlled in a top down fashion. This has the advantage of quickly standardizing what emoji are used, but the drawback of centralizing control in the hands of a few high status individuals.
Once the body of emoji is mostly established, the meaning of a particular emoji tends to expand in complexity. The base meaning of the image slowly gets overtaken by the particular meaning that the community endows it with through the contexts in which it is used. This allows for very subtle communication that can happen rapidly, while also providing a sense of belonging within the community. In this way particular emoji become entrenched and their use becomes a necessity within that community.
Having established an understanding of the role custom emojis play on a single server, let’s move unto the role played by global emoji.

IV — Global Emoji

Global Emoji are one of the most recent additions to the world of Discord communities. If a user pays for the premium Discord service, called Nitro, they can use emoji from any server they are a member of on any other server. This adds an interesting facet to the role of emotes and as a dialect. Now users who are in a new community may use emoji from their “home server” which identifies them as belonging to that community. Interestingly, there is no way to determine which server a particular emoji is from unless you know beforehand. As such, posting an emoji from a particular server/community can signal your membership in that group only to those people who are also affiliated with that community. It’s also not uncommon for someone to see an emoji they particularly like and asked to be invited to that server so they can use it as well. This creates a cultural exchange between Discord communities, as servers with interesting emoji attract new members through the use of those emoji. This is a feature that is not found in regular dialects to the same extent, because they lack the “inherent meaning” that an emoji can have.

V — The many faces of communication

As the role of the internet in human communication continually extends, we will find new ways of expressing ourselves that fit within this new medium. All living languages change, but the dynamism inherent to the internet allows that change to accelerate and move in interesting and surprising directions. Discord emoji are among some of the most interesting and divergent changes in the way we communicate online. Particular platforms will come and go, but I hope that this look into the role of emoji on Discord will provide insight into the ways that we can shape communities as users and platform creators. It’s easy to forget the power that user experience designers have when creating a platform, but I believe that the new social engineers of the internet can use their tools to build flourishing and beneficial communities.