Taking advantage of the fact that the Seville Fair is being held and that the Pisuerga passes through Valladolid, it seems that it has been a good day to shed some light on the true meaning of “the flamenco WhatsApp” . This is one of the best known and most versatile icons, since it can be used for when you feel like partying, when something goes well or as a synonym for a very Spanish phrase: “Olé!” . But no, I'm sorry to tell you that the WhatsApp flamenco is neither a flamenco nor wearing a fair dress. What, then, is its meaning?
The truth is that, although we could associate the emoji with the traditional Spanish flamenco singing and dancing, the reality is that we have to cross the puddle to go back to its origins. And is that "the flamenco WhatsApp" is, in fact, "the salsa dancer WhatsApp" . Indeed, the emoji represents a salsa dancer . Yes, you have lived cheated all your life. Well, not your whole life, rather since 2010.
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Flamenco emoji is not really a flamenco
The emoji, whose real name is "Woman Dancing", was introduced in Unicode 6.0 under the name "Dancer" and was added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015 . It is also known as "the woman in the red dress" or "salsa dancer", but the words "flamenco" or "Spanish" do not appear anywhere. In fact, just look at the details of the image to realize that it does not have a comb or castanets , basic accessories of flamenco dresses.
In the beginning it was thought as an emoji without gender, but its appearance made it associate with a woman. That might lead to the fact that, in 2016, and as part of Unicode 9.0, a dancer man was added to the family of emojis. However, this is not dressed as men who dance salsa usually wear, but with a clothing more typical of the clubs of the 80s . Such is so, although his real name is "Man Dancing", it is known as "Disco Dancer".
Sources : Emojipedia 1 , 2
Veronica is a culture reporter at Collaborative Research Group, where she writes about food, fitness, weird stuff on the internet, and, well, just about anything else. She has also covered technology news and has a penchant for smartphone stories. .
