Image Source: Will Mullery/CNN
Do you still reach for the Tears of Joy emoji (😂) when a text makes you laugh? Congratulations, you are old.
No, not according to us. According to data analysed by Google emoji researchers, the Loudly Crying Face (😭) has officially dethroned its tearful predecessor to become the single most used emoji on the planet, expressing everything from laughter to sadness and embarrassment.
For its new usage report for 2025, Google collected data from an anonymous sample of 665 million emojis used by people worldwide on Gboard, the built-in keyboard on Android devices. Furthermore, when The New York Times analysed Reddit posts and consulted linguists, they found that the young generation finds other emojis overused.
What makes the Loudly Crying Face so dominant isn’t a sudden surge in global despair but its wild versatility. While originally designed to signify intense grief or weeping, digital culture has completely co-opted the emoji. Today, it functions as a multi-purpose tool for dramatic emotions like uncontrollable laughter. It has replaced texts like “I am screaming” or “Dead” when something is genuinely hilarious. It also reflects overwhelming awe to extreme cuteness, good news or heartwarming moments. The emoji is so flexible that it also expresses second-hand embarrassment, feeling overwhelmed, or offering a deadpan reaction to daily absurdities.
In The New York Times report, Jennifer Daniel, creative director at Google and chair of the Unicode emoji subcommittee, points out that digital communication has shifted away from public broadcasting platforms like Facebook and toward direct, intimate group chats. In these closer subcultures, hyper-expressive visual slang takes priority over simple, literal representations.
This shift is heavily anchored in an age-based split.
In the NYT report, Sociolinguists like Sali A. Tagliamonte from the University of Toronto note that teenagers, particularly girls, have always been at the forefront of linguistic change. Older demographics tend to maintain stable habits, explaining Gen X’s continued loyalty to 😂 and 🤣.
For younger users, particularly Gen Z and Gen Alpha, using emojis literally feels overly earnest or “cringe.” To them, the standard laughing-crying face reads like a performative boomer email signature. Choosing 😭 instead allows for an exaggerated, ironic tone that feels more natural in modern online discourse. This generational divide extends across the keyboard: young texters frequently reach for 🔥 where older people use 💯, and prefer 🙏 (folded hands) over 👍 (thumbs up), a symbol now dismissed by youth culture as a “boomer emoji” used only post-ironically.
The downfall of the Tears of Joy emoji 😂 is part of a restless cycle where young users constantly swap visual slang before it goes mainstream.
Fueled by TikTok, the wilted flower (🥀) jumped to the 93rd most-used emoji to express heartbreak or feeling burnt out, while the moai statue (🗿) surged to 33rd as the default symbol for a deadpan, silent “are you serious?” reaction.
In fact, most recently, the dolphin emoji (🐬) has emerged as the newest stand-in for uncontrollable laughter, with users dropping the aquatic mammal because its high-pitched squeaks sound like wheezing laughter.
This post was last modified on August 20, 2026 6:03 pm