The purpose of this presentation is to discuss the research I conducted for my master’s thesis in 2023 titled The Semantics of Emoji and Memes: Unpacking Meaning Making Among Social Media Users, as an example of ordinariness and innovation in current sociolinguistic research. This will be done by highlighting the research results and possibilities for future research, as an example of ordinariness and innovation within sociolinguistic research. This is because the research on meaning making related to emoji and memes within computer-mediated communication (CMC) on social media, with a specific focus on how the average person attaches meaning from their perspective is a new idea within the existing research. 

My research focused on how different people, who come from different backgrounds, and who speak different languages, attach meaning to emoji and memes when they use them to communicate on Facebook. I aimed to fill a gap in the existing academic literature where I found a lack of representation and focus on how the average person, on the ground attaches meaning to emoji and memes. The result of the research was as follows: when different people use emoji and memes online on social media platforms like Facebook, meaning making is both shared and universal, however, room is still left for different modes of expression online. In other words, when social media users communicate with one another they either attach similar meaning to the same emoji or meme, or the meaning they attach is different. There is still more work on studying emoji and memes that needs to be done. This includes, however, is not limited to studying how different people, from different age groups attach meaning to emoji and memes, how meaning has changed over time, and the meaning attached to emoji and memes on different social media platforms.