A picture is worth a thousand words. And in 2023, emojis confirm it. Of the 3,782 Unicode-compliant emoticons as of September 2023, Meltwater, an analysis and social intelligence tool, has unveiled the 10 most-used emojis this year on 12 platforms, including Instagram and Twitter, between January 1 and November 30, 2023.
The results show that humor seems to have been the strongest driving force for emoji use. At the top of the list is the “face with tears of joy,” with 254 million mentions on social networks, often the most popular with Millennials.
It is followed by the “loudly crying face,” with another 46 million mentions (208 million), a Gen Z favorite. Finally, the “rolling-on-the-floor laughing” emoji, takes third place with 128 million mentions.
Note that, unlike the two others, the “loudly crying face” can be used to express both sadness and exhaustion, as well as joy and crying with laughter.
While the most popular emojis may vary from year to year, the ranking shows a massive use of emoticons linked to love and passion, with the red heart in fourth place in the top 10 raking, fire in fifth.
The “smiling face with heart eyes” and the “smiling face with hearts” follow in seventh and eighth place, respectively. These emojis were particularly popular on Valentine’s Day, February 14, with the red heart leading the way.
Flaming emoji
Meltwater points to a surge in use of the fire emoticon on October 26, propelling it to third place at the time, which was apparently due to a Bitcoin spam, copied and pasted onto X (formerly Twitter) “probably by bots”. Still, the fire emoji has also taken hold on Pinterest, Twitch and Instagram. On Twitter, Reddit and Facebook, the “face with tears of joy” emoticon was the most popular.
Often used to highlight passion for or interest in a particular subject, Meltwater points out that the most used emojis on Pinterest — the red heart, sparkles, smiling face with heart eyes and fire – were associated with phrases like “You’ll love this” and “I love this idea!”
In the US, the “face with tears of joy” emoji leads the way as the most popular, as it does in the UK and Nigeria, while the “loudly crying face” has taken hold in South Africa and the red heart has conquered India.
1) 😂 Face with tears of joy
2) 😭 Loudly crying face
3) 🤣 Rolling on the floor laughing
4) ❤️ Red heart
5) 🔥 Fire
6) 🙏 Folded hands
7) 😍 Smiling face with heart eyes
8) 🥰 Smiling face with hearts
9) ✨ Sparkles
10) 😊 Smiling face with smiling eyes
