Following up on the people you spotted cash for got a lot easier when apps like Zelle, Cashand Venmo came on the market. Suddenly, we were all able to charge the exact amount we were owed without having to round up or estimate costs. Venmo, though, is by far the most-used app for exchanging money among millennials.
But it turns out that the way we useVenmo also says something about the way we perform our genders, with women and men using it in different ways. So, here’s a fun little exercise for you:
Think back on what emoji you last used on Venmo.
Was it the heart emoji? The sparkles emoji? Wait, forget emoji—did you say “thanks” or “thank you” in your message to someone? You’re not alone if you did. It turns out that the usage of certain emoji and certain words (like “thanks” or “thank you”) correlates strongly with gender on the platform.
According to a recent study by the student loan refinancing site Comet, women and men largely rely on different emoji and words when sending and requesting funds from others. Among the emoji used principally by women? That would include the double heart, lipstick, bride, kissy face, sparkles and—oh yes—the wine glass emoji. The emoji used primarily by men, on the other hand, was the golfing tee along with the eggplant (nice), followed by the basketball and football emoji.
It’s interesting to note how common gender stereotypes are apparently supported by the user trends on Venmo. Men, according to the study, sent each other the beer mug emoji more frequently than anything else, (they accounted for 63 percent of usage). Women, in turn, were more likely to use the wine glass emoji when sending money to each other.
To gather their findings, Comet randomly selected 500,000 transactions on Venmo during the month of November in 2017. They then scraped the data and played match-up by using a list of common male and female names to determine a user’s gender.
The common thread, however, is that what users rely on the platform is primarily the same. It looks like we’re all just paying friends for drinks and dinner, along with occasional expenses like rent, gas and even the electric bill. For instance, “food,” was the most frequently used word among both men and women.
Still, it looks like men could learn some basic manners from women. The word “thanks” ranked significantly higher among female users than men—almost twice as high.
[h/t Moneyish]
