One use of emoji that’s explicitly beat-related comes when each word is followed by a clapping hands emoji, as in WHAT ARE YOU DOING . This started as an emoji representation of a beat gesture common among African American women. Comedian Robin Thede described the “double clap on syllables” in a Nightly Show segment on “Black Lady Sign Language.” But as writer Kara Brown put it when the gesture started making mainstream news headlines, “This—this clapping on every word for emphasis—is something that I have done since I was a cantankerous youth.” In 2016, it started spreading to mainstream
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