On April 1st, some Instagram Japan users reported a rather comical bug affecting dakuten — diacritical marks placed after hiragana indicating how a consonant should be voiced — in Instagram direct messages. The bug converted the dakuten mark ( ﾞ ) into the ubiquitous smiling ^_^ kaomoji. The handakuten mark ( ﾟ ) didn’t escape unscathed, either. Instead of one nikoniko (ニコニコ; smiling) kaomoji appearing, two kaomoji would replace the handakuten.
More Amusing Than Annoying
People’s reactions to the bug were invariably full of amusement, with immediate reactions falling squarely in the “cute” category. Many took to Twitter to share screencaps of their kaomoji-plagued messages. Japanese company Simeji certainly had no qualms in capitalizing off of Instagram’s plight by promoting their keyboard app in Twitter replies. One user posted a video to show how they avoided the bug by typing out the message in Instagram’s GIPHY search bar and copy-and-pasting it into DMs. “It’s annoying, but it works,” they tweeted.
Considering how the bug appeared on April 1st, one can’t help but think this bug smacks of an April Fool’s Day prank. However, iOS users have also reported other issues after updating to Instagram’s latest version that rules out that possibility.
Kaomoji reportedly appeared when users typed a small tsu (っ) or small ya (ゃ). Another bug automatically duplicated certain hiragana characters, making for rather messy, incomprehensible messages like the one below.
Others, of course, were more annoyed than enamored with the sudden proliferation of smiley faces taking over their messages. Users have reverted to downloading keyboard apps like the aforementioned Simeji. Others took the painstaking time to copy and paste messages from other apps.
When reached out for comment on April 1st, Instagram Japan reported they were aware of the problem and were working to fix it. Soon after, users reported that a quick app update took care of the kaomoji bugs. While certainly not as aggravating as the recurring bug hiding Instagram likes from some users, even cute bugs like this quickly lose their humorous appeal.
The short but impressionable reign of the ^_^ kaomoji may have come to an end, but the chuckles and grumbles it elicited along the way will no doubt carve its place in Instagram Japan bug history.
