Emoji are a fun way to communicate with others, and the internet celebrates this with World Emoji Day every July 17 (since that's the date on the calendar emoji). As part of those celebrations, Emojipedia, an online directory of emoji and their meanings, announces awards for most popular new emoji, most anticipated emoji and even lifetime achievement awards. In my opinion, this year's winner for Most Popular New Emoji was bound to win.
Based on Emojipedia's site data, the winner of the Most 2025 Emoji and Most Popular New Emoji is the face with bags under eyes. And I'm not surprised. I mean, look at that beautiful emoji -- its expression says so much without any words.
Apple
It's saying, "I've seen enough of this foolishness," "You're wrong, but I'm too tired to fight you on this" and so much more all at the same time. The emoji is countless people when they haven't had their morning cup of coffee, and it's also the face I make when someone I went to high school with tries to get me to join their multi-level marketing network. What I'm saying is, who hasn't felt like this emoji at one time or another -- or maybe every day for months?
What were other popular new emoji?
The face with bags under eyes was clearly going to win the Most Popular New Emoji award from the start because it's so relatable and widely understood. The contest for most popular new emoji this year was always a question of which emoji would come in second and third, and Emojipedia said that the splatter emoji came in second with the shovel emoji coming in third.
The splatter emoji shows a splash of an unknown liquid, and it's generally purple. Sure, you could use it in innocuous messages about painting, but let's be real, people will use it in messages on Tinder and other dating apps.
The shovel is a standard shovel. While there's no known data on how people are using the shovel emoji, I can see this evolving into a way of saying you're going to bury someone, either beating them really badly in a fight or dropping a lot of scandalous dirt on them. I bet Scandal's Olivia Pope would have loved the shovel emoji.
The Emoji Lifetime Achievement Award goes to…
Emojipedia
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