Live data from Hacker News

The Not-So-Universal Language of Laughter

research.facebook.com

1–10 of 17 posts

Re: The Not-So-Universal Language of Laughter

#3
I'm surprised "lol" is so uncommon... only 1.9%. I see it more often than haha I think... Also no mention of rofl? Or lmao? Or kekeke? Odd...

And by emoji, do they mean the Japanese ones? Because smileys and emoticons existed long before emoji...

Maybe the facebook users are different than the internet crowd I know (mostly forums).

Re: The Not-So-Universal Language of Laughter

#4
post #2

I'd love to know why Wyoming, of all places, appears to use only emoji. Or is this just a lack of data issue in the least populous state?

Yeah, probably a job for De Moivre's equation. I heartily recommend this chapter on it, covers similar geographical effects: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8863.pdf

Re: The Not-So-Universal Language of Laughter

#5
post #3

I'm surprised "lol" is so uncommon... only 1.9%. I see it more often than haha I think... Also no mention of rofl? Or lmao? Or kekeke? Odd... And by emoji, do they mean the Japanese ones? Because smileys and emoticons existed long before emoji... Maybe the facebook users are different than the internet crowd I know (mostly forums).

Footnote 2 seems to be a listing of the regexes used. It seems emoji means "some of the smilies we automatically replace with images".

Re: The Not-So-Universal Language of Laughter

#6
I wonder about geographical and global (that is different countries and languages) effects. In my experience the 'hehe' or even 'eheh' is a much more common European statement than the 'haha' of the Anglophone world. I know Facebook restricted themselves to the US, but a global study would be very interesting...

Re: The Not-So-Universal Language of Laughter

#7
post #3

I'm surprised "lol" is so uncommon... only 1.9%. I see it more often than haha I think... Also no mention of rofl? Or lmao? Or kekeke? Odd... And by emoji, do they mean the Japanese ones? Because smileys and emoticons existed long before emoji... Maybe the facebook users are different than the internet crowd I know (mostly forums).

I hear kids these days are using lel a lot.

Also, no muhaha or muahaha etc... but I suppose those wouldn't match too many.

Re: The Not-So-Universal Language of Laughter

#8
post #4
post #2

I'd love to know why Wyoming, of all places, appears to use only emoji. Or is this just a lack of data issue in the least populous state?

Yeah, probably a job for De Moivre's equation. I heartily recommend this chapter on it, covers similar geographical effects: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8863.pdf

Stability is a great way to counter this effect. If a county goes up and down the cancer rate chart then it's probably statistical noise. However, if it's steadily at the top every decade for 50 years that's likely to have an cause. Even if it's just an older than normal population.

Re: The Not-So-Universal Language of Laughter

#9
"You might have noticed that we cut the plot at 20 letters, but as with any behavior on the Internet, there is a long tail of laughter lengths. Our automatic regular expression parser gave up after trying to get through a haha over 600 letters long! Computers have a long way to go before they can truly understand the human condition. We weren't laughing that day."
Post reply on HN