This Is Your Guide to Emoji Meanings and Which Are the Most Popular in December

Apple and Samsung presented nine new emoticons to your devices earlier this year with the release iOS 18.4 And One interface 7including face with bags under eyes, spray And harp. Then Unicode Consortium approved and released eight new emoticons in Septemberincluding distorted face And killer whale. However, these emojis will not appear on your device for several months. While emojis can be funny, deciphering them can sometimes be a challenge.

Over time, emoji meanings have become subjective and dependent on the context of the message and broader cultural trends. “😃” or “❤️” are easy to understand, but what's the difference between “😩” and “😭” and what does it mean when someone sends you a food emoji like “🍆” or “🍑”?

Here's how to understand that everything 3953 emoticons mean and what a smiley will appear on your device next.

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Emojipedia is here to help

Emojipedia this is an online encyclopedia of emoticons run by people who research emoji. The site sorts emoji into nine categories, including emoji, people, objects and actions. Each category then breaks down the emoji into further subsections. So if you click on “Smileys” for example, you'll see sections like Smiling and affectionate And Sleepy and unhealthy.

If you click on an individual emoji, Emojipedia will give you a short description of that emoji. For example, here's what Emojipedia says about the “✨” sign sparkles smiley:

“Commonly used to represent a variety of positive feelings, including love, happiness, beauty, gratitude and excitement, as well as newness or purity.

Can also be used as a form of ✨emphasis✨ or to convey sarcastic or mocking tones.”

Emojipedia will also provide you with a list of other emojis that this particular emoji works well with. In the case of “🎁” wrapped gift emoji, for example, Emojipedia's suggestions include “🥳”. party face and “🛒” basket.

Each Emojipedia entry also shows the different illustrations for each emoji on different platforms, as well as how they evolved. The emoji entry will also show shortcodes and other names for each emoji, if applicable.

What are the most popular emoticons?

You can have your own emojis, but according to Emojipedia, these are some of the most popular emojis as of mid-December. The list changes periodically, so what's popular now may not be popular next month or during the holidays. Please note that not all platforms support all the latest emojis, so not all of them may appear on your device.

What are the latest emoticons?

In 2024 Google introduced Emoji 16.0which included eight new emojis, listed here:

Apple has included these emojis in iOS 18.4 in March, and Samsung introduced these emojis on select devices with One interface 7 in April and more devices since then. WhatsApp introduced these emojis in January.

How often are new emoticons added?

Anyone can present an idea for a new emoticon. Unicode Consortium is responsible for creating emoticons. The group approves new emoji once a year, usually in the fall, but those emoji may not appear on your device until the following spring.

Unicode approved eight new emoticons in September, including Bigfoot and Orca. Here are all the new emojis you'll see on your device in the future.

An An apple core emoji was also proposed in July.but according to Emojipediathis emoji was removed from consideration before the Unicode Consortium could approve it.

What about custom emojis like Apple's Genmoji?

Apple introduced its emoticon generator. Genmojiat the 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference, and the tech giant has included this feature in iOS 18.2. However, only people with iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max or device from iPhone 16 line can currently access Genmoji.

If you can't use Genmoji and want to create your own emoji, Emojipedia has two dedicated emoji generators.

First of all, it's Emojipedia Smiley generator with artificial intelligence. With this tool you can create anything from a frog in a cowboy hat to a heart-shaped pizza. You enter an emoji description into the generator and the tool will create an emoji based on your description. You can then download or copy your own emoji to your clipboard and use it as a sticker in messaging apps like WhatsApp and iMessage. This emoji generator is free, but you can only create three emoji per day, so be sure to describe your emoji in as much detail as possible so you don't waste any attempts.

If you have run out of AI emoji generations for today, you can also use Emoji mashup botwhich combines two emoticons from Twemoji kit. You can use this as many times as you like, but you can only select up to 113 emojis to combine, and they are all emojis. This means that you cannot be as creative with your creation as you can with an AI emoji generator.

And all this just for the sake of emoticons?

Yes, but wait, there's more! Emojipedia also hosts World Emoji Awards on World Emoji Day, July 17th. Awards are given for things like “Most Popular New Emoji” and “Most Anticipated Emoji.” Winners are determined by popular vote on X, formerly known as Twitter, and any emoji approved the year before are eligible to win.

Winner The most popular new emojis in 2025 And The most popular emojis of 2025 was face with bags under eyes. This emoticon also won The most awaited emoji for 2024, so the only award he has left to win is the Lifetime Achievement Award.

An emoticon with a distorted face won the nomination The most anticipated emojis of 2025And melting face (🫠) smiley won Lifetime Achievement Award. The melting face emoji is now the youngest emoji to win this award, but the face with bags under the eyes may one day dethrone it soon.

In 2024 Most Popular New Emoji was head shakes horizontally (🙂‍↔️).

For more details, here last approved emoji, how to respond to messages with emojis on iPhone And How to Use Emojis Instead of Comments in Google Docs.