The case for emoji usernames

We’ve all been there. Staring at the account creation fields of an email or social media site, racking our brain for a username which is available.

First name… taken.

First name with surname initial… taken.

Favourite fictional character… taken.

I remember creating my first email account with Hotmail in 1997. I was a teenager and an avid reader of Spawn comics at the time, so my first choice was going to be hellspawn@hotmail.com… it was taken and I had to add random numbers to the end in order to secure an address which was available (don’t worry, I have long since moved to an email address that won’t raise eyebrows at the top of a CV 😉). Given it was difficult to secure an account with a clean naming convention 25 years ago, you can imagine how much worse it is today.

Even if you find a great username that is available on one platform, what are the chances the same name is available across all platforms you want to use? Will someone who knows you as @Jane1390 on Twitter realise that you are also @JaneN90 on Instagram?

Imagine if you could have a single username that would identify you on and log you into social platforms, that could be used as a wallet address for receiving payments, or which when entered into a browser address bar directs someone to your website. The benefits of having a universal username as part of your online identity seem obvious.

There are already several companies trying to establish just that.

Nametag claims to offer a “universal” alphanumeric username, minted via a smart contract on Ethereum. The problem? There are only 5,000 available right now and they are expensive, which means they aren’t accessible to everyone. They’ve allowed owners to choose any name which means the usernames will clash with those already existing on other platforms, making them unlikely to be integrated natively.

ENS makes things a little more interesting by providing the option to register an identity with a ‘.ETH’ extension. Less likely to clash with usernames on existing platforms, but on the other hand, who wants the shortcode for a cryptocurrency hanging off the end of their online identity?

There are a number of other systems similarly aiming to provide a global and decentralised naming service, from Handshake, to Butterfly Protocol, and Unstoppable Domains, among others.

One option that stands apart from the others is Yat. Instead of alphanumeric usernames, Yat allows you to create a username by choosing a string of between 1 and 5 emojis. When you first hear about using emojis to create a username it may sound a little strange. I know I was skeptical the first time I saw it and I have seen the same first reaction from many other (eventual) converts.

But sit on the idea for a little bit.

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, what are 5 emojis worth? What story can you tell? What can you say or express about yourself using emojis? How many alphanumeric characters would it take to communicate the same ideas that you can with just a few emoji characters?

Yat has only been around for 9 months and we’ve already seen some very creative ways that people are using Yats to generate emoji usernames and identify themselves online.