‘JI’ WE SEEM HAPPY!

Positivity rules in ’23’s top emojis

Judging from 2023’s most popular emojis, we’re feeling surprisingly upbeat, says an emoji expert.

The top three most-used emojis in the past 12 months were crying with laughter, rolling on the floor laughing and the red heart — digital icons of positivity, said Keith Broni, 32, the editor-in-chief of the reference site Emojipedia.

Other positive emojis in the top 10 were “heart eyes” (No. 6) and “smiling face with hearts (No. 10).

Of the newly released emojis in 2023, the preference for love over hate continued, Broni said.

The most popular newbies were the pink heart, the shaking face, the blue heart and the grey one.

The choices show that people “are continuing to express positivity among their friends and family,” Broni said.

Broni said the choices also represent a welcome respite from the trend of strangers slinging “hate speech and misinformation on social media.”

Broni conceded crying and laughing emojis are sometimes used sarcastically on social media to mock others.

But he stayed positive himself, telling South West News Service, this year’s emoji hits “were a selection of the absolute classics from the emoji keyboard.”

Emojis, tiny digital icons used to represent an emotion, symbol or object, used in text messages, messaging apps and social media, were introduced in 2008. Since then, they have proven their popularity with all generations. from boomers up to Gen Z, and their popularity keeps growing.

Based on 7 billion tweets over the past 10 years, emoji use has never been higher as one in five posts reportedly used them, per Emojipedia.

Ever the optimist, Broni predicts that the sunnier emojis will dominate the list next year, too.

“With its track record, I believe ‘crying with laughter’ will remain at No. 1 next year,” he said. “Other laughter emojis will continue to be the most popular across the world.”

Interestingly, the smiley face — the original poster child for positivity — has been on the decline, per Emojipedia.

Ultimately, Broni believes that emojis will be an integral part of online communication for the foreseeable future.

“I absolutely don't think emojis will be dying out — emojis’ global popularity has continued to grow year-on-year, and 2023 has been no different,” he said. “They’re an incredibly powerful communication tool that people use to better express themselves.”