Are Snapchat Emojis Resetting?

Snapchat is a social networking/messaging platform that needs little introduction. In fact, it’s one of the fastest growing in its category, but competitors like TikTok are getting Snapchat in trouble. Social media warfare aside, Snapchat has certain rules for showing off your relationships with other users.

As you know, there are a number of emojis that show how good friends you are with someone. Snapchat emojis are reset to give the answer right away. But when and why is a completely different question. Read on to learn more about the colorful world of Snapchat emojis.

Snapchat Emojis 101

The way the Snapchat algorithm identifies your best friends and assigns emojis is pretty straightforward. The people you interact with the most end up on your best friends list. In other words, the more you catch someone, the better chance you have of becoming a BFF with them.

The same is true when you and the other person are messaging in the same group chat. And there’s a built-in emoji set that shows the level of your devotion. At any point you can have up to eight users on your best friends list. Of course, if you don’t interact with your friends or you only have a few friends, your BFF list might be empty.

What Do Emojis Mean?

It all starts with Snapstreak. If you and a friend constantly catch each other for a certain amount of time, a fire emoji will appear next to their name. The number of days is also displayed, provided that the series lasts more than 24 hours. Soon, that person could become your best friend and would have a yellow heart emoji next to their name.

If the Snapstreak persists for two weeks, the user becomes your BFF and has a red heart emoticon. Keep hanging out for two months and the person will become Super BFF and get a purple double heart emoji. But remember, Snapstreak will expire if you don’t send a Snap within 24 hours. However, an hourglass icon will remind you to send a Snap a few hours before the 24-hour window expires.

In addition, there are three more emojis – cake when it’s someone’s birthday, a grimace when you have the same best friend as someone else, and the emoji with sunglasses to show a mutual close friend.

How Often Are Emojis Reset?

Honestly, there’s no way of knowing for sure when Snapchat resets the emojis and updates your best friends list. If you’re an avid user, it may seem like the list and emojis are constantly resetting, and in a way it’s true.

Remember, Snapstreaks have an expiration time of 24 hours, so their emojis are reset/updated every day. Of course, you can extend the streak if you keep catching one. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the reset algorithm works in real time and updates your profile as soon as it receives certain changes. But this is not the end of the story.

That being said, it takes two weeks of continuous capture for someone to become your BFF and two months for the Super BFF badge. So every 14 or 60 days there seems to be a massive reset of emojis and best friends list. Moreover, Snapchat also takes a close look at your profile and the number of interactions decides who is your best friend.

For example, if you have thousands of friends and you exchange a lot of messages daily, you would need to take a lot of photos for the change to happen. This does not mean that the algorithm cannot detect changes; it takes more time to reset emojis due to more interactions.

How to Preview Emojis

Emojis live right next to your best friends’ usernames and avatars. Launch Snapchat and press the speech bubble icon located at the bottom left of the screen. Now, hit the Submit button in the top right.

Best Friends tops the list and each has one of their respective emojis. Another way to see the list of emojis and the best is to take a photo, then press the blue arrow (bottom right) and access the Friends section.

Customize Your Friend’s Emoji

One of the coolest things is that you can change/customize your best emojis. For example, you can turn the BFF red heart emoji into a pizza slice. While the same emojis are available on both platforms, it’s worth noting that the method is slightly different on iPhone and Android. Here’s what you need to do.

Android

Under My Profile, press the gear icon to access Settings. Scroll down and select “Customize Emojis”, let your imagination run wild and exit when you’re done.

iPhone

You still access Settings from My Profile, but now you scroll to Additional Services and select Manage. Hit the Friend Emoji in the next window and tap the one you want to customize.

Who is your BFF?

Finally, you shouldn’t be surprised if you wake up one day and find out that your list of best friends has dropped significantly. It all depends on your interactions, and if you haven’t been feeling fast lately, the fall is imminent.

How many messages/snapshots do you need to exchange before someone gets on the list? Have you customized your emojis? Give us your two cents in the comments below.