Netflix to Padma Lakshmi, emoji of red flags are all over Twitter. Here's how it began

Tribune Web Desk

Chandigarh, October 16

Red flags are the latest on Twitter these days. It’s a a new viral trend of warning about anything you can think of. 

Merriam-Webster defines red flag as a "warning signal or sign" or "something that indicates or draws attention to a problem, danger or irregularity." The dictionary decribes the first usage of red flag as a noun dating back to 1748.

The platform says it's seen a 455 per cent increase over the last week in tweets using the emoji in the US.

And now the red-flag-emoji tweets are being used globally.

The trend started among Black Twitter users this week who were talking about red flags in dating. The tweets covered things like someone who's always online but is slow to text back; someone saying they're still friends with their ex, or "going all day without talking to me."

A tweet calling out the latter is one of the top retweeted tweets of this trend, raking in more than 28,000 retweets so far. 

Not all the tweets are serious; many of them are jokes.