Techniques for context sensitive illustrated graphical user interface elements, comprising a social networking application. The social networking application may include, among other components, a social networking graphical elements management component to provide a list of recommended graphical element identifier information, in response to a request for the list of recommended graphical element identifier information, a context determination component to determine user context information representative of the at least one user context based at least partially on user communications intent information, user profile information, device location information, calendar event information, and/or external event information, and a graphical elements recommendation component to generate the list of recommended graphical element identifier information based at least partially on the user profile information, graphical elements promotion information, and/or the user context information.