The Brief: The new smiling face with tear emoji represents simultaneous expressions of happiness and sadness.
DEEP DIVE
Emotions are confusing. They’re nuanced. Not everything can be divided into happy or sad or angry or scared. Luckily, the smiling face with tear emoji has been added to the 2020 emoji update 13.0.
While this new symbol is similar to the tears of joy emoji 😂in that it expresses simultaneous smiles and tears, it is distinct in how it represents a mix of happiness and sadness. It also may connote a situation in which someone is literally “smiling through the tears” as they force a smile while they’re still sad and crying. Or maybe this emoji just has allergies…
A relevant same energy meme:
Same energy https://t.co/LJCaOP2S7l pic.twitter.com/SqSk3YXkIA
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) January 29, 2020
the smiling face with tear emoji looks like he wants to kill you by holding your head underwater until you drown https://t.co/nwf6P4ogpz
— Emimi (@hyvarinenemmi) January 30, 2020
The smiling with tear emoji is also reminiscent of this video of a cat crying through the pain of eating Hot Cheetos (don’t try this at home):
[email protected] CRYING AND STILL LICKING KSJSKSKKSKS pic.twitter.com/I1JpgSpVbZ
— THE GAY ORACLE (@MedinaMUAYE) January 23, 2020