Face With Tears Of Joy 😂

A smiling or grinning face with tears streaming down both cheeks—not sad tears, but overflow tears from laughing so hard you're actually crying. The smile remains intact, sometimes with closed, happy eyes, emphasizing that these are definitely tears of laughter, not sadness. It's become the universal symbol for "this is so funny I'm literally crying."

Despite (or perhaps because of) its ubiquity, this emoji has become something of a meme itself. People use it for genuinely hilarious moments, but also ironically, sarcastically, or even for things only mildly amusing. It's been voted the most-used emoji globally multiple times, which says something about how central laughter is to digital communication. The emoji works for jokes, funny videos, witty comebacks, or anything that strikes you as amusing.

The tears-of-joy emoji occupies an interesting space: it can signal genuine hilarity, but context matters. In a group chat, it might mean something actually made you laugh. In a formal context, it can read slightly frivolous. Some people avoid it specifically because of overuse, while others lean on it heavily. The emoji has transcended its literal meaning to become something more like "this amuses me" with varying degrees of actual amusement implied.

Platform designs are generally consistent, though some versions have bigger tears or more exaggerated expressions. The emoji experienced peak use around 2015-2020 but remains dominant. Approved as part of Unicode 0.6 in 2010 and included in early emoji sets, it's arguably the emoji that started the conversation about emoji becoming a new language entirely.