We have entered into a whole new world. Emojis are words now. Well, kinda.
To explain: Every year the Oxford Dictionaries declares a Word of the Year, generally a phrase or word that has gone viral or entered the public consciousness in a major way. Often, it’s hip. Last year, for example, the Word of the Year was vape.
This year? You might guess the word would be “bae,” “on fleek” or something similar. But no, Oxford has decided to go beyond this time. The Word of the Year isn’t a word at all, it’s an emoji.
The Face With Tears of Joy emoji is legit now.
Oxford chose this emoji with the help of the tech company SwiftKey. The Face With Tears of Joy emoji was the most used in 2015 across the globe. That face makes up 17 percent of all emojis used in the United States!
The emoji was chosen as the “word” that “best reflected the ethos, mood and preoccupations of 2015,” according to the blog post.
Tell us, do you use it all the time to explain how you feel? How do you interpret it?
We like to think it means something more sinister, death by laugher maybe, a la The Joker.
Runners up:
Lumbersexual
Sharing Economy
Dark Web
