People are stunned after only just discovering name for popular loading icon

It seems like we’re constantly learning something new through social media that we probably should have known all along.

There are plenty of symbols used in reference to online platforms but it turns out every day is a school day after one particularly common one has got people realizing they never knew what it was called.

The loading icon is a symbol used for most sites and streaming services to show that a page is loading or a video is buffering.

Everyone seems to have a different name for the icon (Mayuramew/Getty)

It’s something we see a lot on the internet and is usually met with an annoyed sigh as it’s normally a sign of poor WiFi signal, but despite it being around for years, it’s only now that people are noticing that they all have different names for it.

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, popular page Today Years Old, wrote: “How old were you when you learned this thing had a name?”

With the post came a photo of the icon which gained over 156,000 views and many had different answers to the question.

The real name of the loading symbol is actually a throbber, much to a lot of users’ disbelief.

One user replied: "What? That's a spinner. I've been in numerous UI design reviews over the years I have never heard it referred to as this. I need to ask someone about this next week."

Another wrote: "I always called it the weeble wheel."

Many people are divided on what to call the symbol (Tero Vesalainen/Getty)

A third added: “The twirly thing.”

A fourth said: “I was today years old when I learned that. I thought it was called the spinning thing, or the circle of waiting.”

While a fifth person joked: “No icon has caused more grief, anger and resentment in recent history.”

People have definitely been divided on the name and news of the update spread across social media, with some taking to Reddit to share their thoughts.

One user commented: “What? No. Everybody knows it's the ‘spinny’.”

Another person said: “My old company would internally refer to it as the “circle of doom/death’.”

And a third wrote: “Yeah, if the actual name of the feature is something wildly dumb, then I just use basic words to describe it lol. I am definitely not going to be using the word ‘throbber’ in documentation.”

Despite the various different nicknames everyone has for the icon, it looks like no one will be referring to it as a throbber anytime soon.