Unicode Consortium, the not-for-profit organisation responsible for digitising the world’s languages, has released data about the most frequently used emoji of 2021. ‘Face with tears of joy’ emoji comes first in the ranking, followed by ‘red heart’. The third sport is taken up by ‘rolling on the floor laughing’, followed by ‘thumbs up’, and the fifth spot is taken by ‘loud crying face’. Unicode Consortium had not released data for the year 2020, but 2019’s top ten emojis were pretty much similar.

In a post that details the most used emojis this year, ‘folded hands’ sits on the sixth place similar to 2019. The ‘face blowing a kiss’ emoji climbs up to the seventh place from ninth place two years ago. The ‘two hearts’ emoji is no longer in the top ten emoji list and it is replaced by the ‘smiling face with hearts’ emoji. The ‘smiling face with smiling eyes’ emoji comes down to the tenth position from the earlier fifth position in 2019. The ‘two hearts’ emoji has climbed down to position 16 in 2021.

Unicode notes that the top 200 list contains bigger jumps. The biggest gainers were ‘birthday cake’ emoji that climbed to the 25th position from its earlier 113. The ‘balloon’ emoji is now in the 48th position from the earlier 139th place, and the ‘pleading face’ emoji is now at the 14th position from the earlier 97th place.

Across sub-categories, the ‘rocket ship’ emoji is the most used in the transport category and the ‘flexed bicep’ emoji is the top used in the body part category. The ‘bouquet’ is most used in the plant flower category, and ‘butterfly’ is the most common animal emoji. ‘Person doing cartwheel’ may not be the most popular sport in the world but it is said to be the most popular ‘person-sport’ suggestive of happiness and joy.