A picture is worth a thousand words — and also maybe some laughs, cries, and goat bleats.
In July, Facebook Messenger introduced “soundmojis”: Emojis that play a sound when you send them within Messenger. Facebook’s sound design team has assigned unique sounds to 30 emojis. So, for example, if you want to send a hands clapping emoji, it can now come with actual uproarious applause.
Other soundmojis have pop culture sound clips associated with them. Click the stop emoji and Billie Eilish will ask: “Stop. What the hell are you talking about?” Which is a much more devastating thing to send to someone than the simple red octagon.
How Facebook sound designers gave emojis a voice
Soundmojis are only in Facebook Messenger for now. However, Facebook owns WhatsApp and Instagram, and has already been integrating the backends of the messaging platforms, and allowing for inter-platform messaging between Facebook and Instagram. So it’s possible you’ll be seeing more of these noisy emojis in the future.
Here’s how to use soundmojis.
1. Give Facebook Messenger access to the microphone in your phone settings. On iPhones, go to Settings, and then scroll down and click on the Messenger app. Toggle the Microphone option to “On.”
2. Open a chat in Facebook Messenger.
3. Navigate to the text box, and click the smiley face icon in the right corner.
4. This will pull up a menu in the lower half of the app with four tabs. Click the farthest right tab, which is the speaker icon.
Credit: screenshot: Facebook messenger
5. Clicking the speaker icon will take you to your menu of soundmojis. Scroll through the options, and test the sound by clicking on a soundmoji within the menu.
6. Once you’ve selected a soundmoji for testing, it will appear larger in the center of the menu. You can hear a test again by clicking. And if you’re sure it’s the soundmoji you want to express yourself with, click the “send” button underneath the selected soudmoji.
7. The soundmoji will appear in the chat. However, it won’t play on its own. The person you’re chatting with will have to click on the soundmoji to hear its audio. They’ll know it’s got soundmoji status because it will appear with parentheses around it.
