The Brief: The new smiling face with tear emoji represents simultaneous expressions of happiness and sadness.

Bluesquiggle
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 πŸ˜‚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:

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):