Which emojis are cool to use, and which ones make you seem old?
The New York Times has endeavored to answer this question with a new analysis published on Wednesday that looks at the most popular emojis of 2025 as well as the emojis that have risen the most in popularity.
The Times used data from an anonymous sample of 665 million emojis “used by people worldwide on Gboard, a Google keyboard built into most devices using Android, the most widely used operating system.”
The Google data lacks demographic details, so in order to know who (specifically which age groups and generations) is using which emojis, the Times used Reddit forums. The forums show broad generational trends.
According to Sali A. Tagliamonte, a professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto, teenagers — specifically teenage girls — are always at the forefront of linguistic change. This is the same with the evolving popularity of various emojis.
Here’s a look at what emojis were the most popular last year and the evolving language of emojis.
The top 10 most popular emojis
According to the data from Google, the 10 most-used emojis have remained the same over the past few years, but they have swapped positions within the top 10. Even though there are over 3,600 emojis available, these 10 emojis made up 36% of all emoji usage in 2025.
The most recent data available from Google was from 2025, so that’s what the Times used in its analysis.
Here’s a look at the 10 most-used emojis:
| 2025 ranking | 2024 ranking | Emoji |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | 😭 loudly crying face |
| 2 | 1 | 🤣 rolling on the floor laughing |
| 3 | 2 | 😂 face with tears of joy |
| 4 | 3 | ❤️ red heart |
| 5 | 6 | 🙏 folded hands |
| 6 | 5 | 😘 face blowing kiss |
| 7 | 8 | 🥰 smiling face with hearts |
| 8 | 7 | 👍 thumbs up |
| 9 | 9 | 😍 smiling with heart-eyes |
| 10 | 10 | 😁 beaming face with smiling eyes |
Last year, 😭 was the most popular emoji worldwide, making up more than 6% of all emojis used. It has become all-purpose for many people who use it when something is so funny, embarrassing or emotional you could cry.
😭 reached the top spot by jumping over 🤣 and 😂. A major reason for that is that young people decided 🤣 and 😂 were overused, according to linguists and the Times’ analysis of Reddit forums.
The New York Times ranked the 500 most-used emojis in 2025 and the full list can be viewed in the analysis.
The 10 fastest-rising emojis
While the 10 most-used emojis have remained relatively stable for the last few years, there are a number of emojis that are quickly gaining in popularity.
Here’s a look at the 10 emojis that rose the fastest in popularity in 2025:
| 2025 ranking | Emoji |
|---|---|
| 93 | 🥀 wilted flower |
| 84 | 🫰 hand with index finger and thumb crossed |
| 122 | 🇧🇷 flag: Brazil |
| 25 | 💔 broken heart |
| 130 | 👅 tongue |
| 100 | 😹 cat with tears of joy |
| 16 | 🤭 face with hand over mouth |
| 87 | 💛 yellow heart |
| 98 | 😛 face with tongue |
| 33 | 🗿 moai |
While the use and meaning of some of these of fast-rising emojis feels self explanatory, others are more confusing. Here’s a look at what some of them mean:
- 🥀 — Often signifying sadness or heartbreak. Some people have adopted it in place of 💔.
- 🫰 — This emoji represents the finger heart that became popular from K-pop.
- 🇧🇷 — The use of the Brazilian flag seems to have come from gamer culture.
- 🗿 — The Moai statue is used by young people to represent a deadpan response or a raised eyebrow. On Reddit it is used mainly by Gen Alpha.
Trends in emoji usage can come and go quickly. For example, 💀 rose rapidly in popularity in 2022 and 2023 and then dropped quickly. The emoji is used to indicate when someone is dead from laughter. Among teenagers it briefly outpaced 😭.
Some younger people know that it is time to move on from an emoji when they see older people — such as their grandparents — using it.
For example, teenagers now prefer to use 🔥 in contrast to older people’s use of 💯. Teenagers also tend to use 🙏 in place of 👍, which is especially popular with Gen X.
The evolving language of emojis
Digital communication lacks the nonverbal indicators of meaning and emotion that are communicated in person through facial expressions, gestures and tone of voices. Emojis fill in this gap.
Researchers also say that emojis signal in-group belonging, per The New York Times.
Alongside teenage girls, marginalized groups are most likely to be the most innovative in developing their own language online.
“Usually the more a group is a minority, the more they have reason to differentiate themselves,” said Adam Aleksic, a linguist who wrote “Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language.”
Older generations care more about communicating on a larger scale through platforms like Twitter and Facebook. But now younger generations focus on more direct intimate communication in internet subcultures and group chats. It is in these online subcultures that many emoji trends start, often when meme creators are trying to be cutting edge.
Some younger people are now moving past emojis altogether, instead using stickers. Stickers enable people to create custom and personalized images, using photos or referring to jokes or memes that only the people communicating within a group can understand.
“If emojis have become a universal visual language, stickers offer the opposite, a language of inside jokes,” per The New York Times.