Pushpin Emoji Detour

About

Pushpin Emoji Detour refers to a snowclone which grew popular on Twitter in late 2018. In the snowclone, posters use one pushpin Emoji to signify a problem, then use another pushpin to signify going well out of their way to avoid the simple solution, and a final pushpin to signify the solution they've arrived at.

Origin

The format appears to have begun spreading on December 24th, 2018. On December 24th, Twitter user @V1NCHY^[1] tweeted a joke about girls using facemasks, gaining over 45,000 retweets and 261,000 likes (shown below).

Spread

The format grew more popular over the following week. For example, one of the earliest known variations on the format was posted by Twitter user @jrddddn,^[1] gaining over 60 retweets and 190 likes (shown below, left). On December 27th, Twitter user @RealTungCripp posted a tweet about posting tweets with typos (shown below, right).

The format was spread by popular Twitter users and internet celebrities towards the end of the week, as users like maxmoefoe, Grandayy, Anthony Fantano, posted variations. For example, a tweet by Arin Hanson gained over 1,500 retweets (shown below, left) and @Dictionarycom made a joke that gained over 2,700 retweets (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References