Firstly, if you don't know anything about emoji, here is a well-documented, highly esteemed piece of academia for you to peruse. Essentially, emoji (or picture characters) are small ideograms that are inserted into text messages to cover a wide range of uses, including the expression of emotion and the symbolism of common objects. Originating in Japan, their use increased exponentially after their inclusion in Apple's iPhone and now come standard on nearly every phone on the market today. While emoji are primarily employed for their designated uses (a smiley face means you're happy), they can also carry alternate meanings. If you're not picking up what I'm putting down, here's the fastest primer I could find on the subject. Now that we have a firm grasp on what constitutes an emoji, take a look at this:

Photo via Huffington Post

This, if you aren't able to tell, is a smiling pile of poo, and easily one of the best emojis out there. The poop itself may seem to represent despair and pestilence, but its cheery disposition and seemingly bright outlook on life enables it to cover a wide range of emotions from, "Jeez, my day was so _____," to "Bro, I just took the best _____." A noble and proud creature, our fecal friend exists only to enrich our otherwise clean and sanitary lives with his presence. Unfortunately, it seems as though the rest of Virginia doesn't agree with me. According to this interactive map by SwiftKey, Vermont uses the poop emoji more than any other state. In fact, numerous states use a plethora of emoji more than the rest of the country. Except for Virginia. You want to know what our most used emoji is?

Photo via iemoji

Frog face, and that's it.

Now don't get me wrong, frogs are wonderful creatures (except for this one), and I am in no way condoning the boycott of said emoji, but there's no reason that the poop emoji shouldn't belong to us. Our state produced the engineering marvel that is I-95, and half of our nation's first 10 presidents were Virginian. Plus our second-largest university has a mascot that no one can quite describe to out-of-staters (I don't care what they say, it's just a fish). So band together, Virginians! While Vermont is busy eating Ben & Jerry's, we can start messaging each other exclusively in poop emoji until we take what's rightfully ours. If you care about this great commonwealth and all of its illustrious history, then I implore you: spam the poop emoji until your finger is raw and you're overflowing with... pride.