Emoji That Means We Meet Again
Emojiology: ๐ Upside-Down Face
Whenever I share the piece of work I exercise in defining emoji for Emojipedia, I inevitably meet a two-role response. Kickoff, people fawn over their faves. Hearts, smiles, and, aye, poo ๐ฉ pile loftier among them. Then, they flick on their phones and present to me a grapheme that has been confounding them. The culprit? Nigh always ๐.
"What is it? What'south it supposed to mean? Am I using it correctly?" my concerned emoji-locutors enquire. The capsized countenance of ๐ Upside-Down Face, as the emoji is and so named, tin can indeed twist our heads. So, in this Emojiology, let'south attempt to get our agreement of ๐ right-side up.
๐ค Meaning
Depicting a archetype yellow smiley face turned upside downward, ๐ Upside-Downwardly Face up commonly conveys sarcasm, irony, humor, and silliness. It is frequently used as a playful indication of awkwardness, frustration, ambivalence, or bemused resignation, as if saying, "Oh well!"
๐ฌ Evolution
๐ Upside-Downwardly Face was approved nether Unicode 8.0 in 2015, but information technology had been topsy-turvy on many screens since 2008. In October that year, Google unveiled nearly 80 vivid and blocky emojis on Gmail, including an upside-down smiley.
The designs for Gmail'due south charming, often animated characters were based on early on emoji sets from the Japanese cell telephone carrier au by KDDI. Au, however, lacked an upside-down face, but records of Gmail'south initial emoji support in Japan map its upside-down face onto a Japanese emoticon (kaomoji) referred to every bit ้็ซใก (sakadachi), meaning "handstand, headstand, being upside down or in reverse."
A Japanese database—a kind of Emojipedia predecessor chosen "Emoji Site for Mobile Phones" and archived back to 2003—allowed users to copy and e-mail diverse pictographs, including those from Docomo and au, early providers of emoji.
Categorized under ใขใฏใทใงใณ็ณป ("action group"), since 2004 the database has included a set of emoticons called ้็ซใก, (sakadachi, "handstand"), featuring the adorable acrobatics of ┌(･￣･)┐, dubbed "Inverted Face Emoticon," and (.-.), or "Upside-Downwards," amongst others.
One upside-down face, ๏ฝท๏พ━━━━(๏พ∀๏พ)━━━━!!, is apparently a accept on a popular kaomoji known as kita, which can express the excitement of "All right!" or the bliss of "OMG!" This emoticon suggests the action of a cartwheel, sometimes done or said to portray a kind of artless joy, e.g., When I learned the Spice Girls were doing a reunion tour, my 13-year-old self was doing cartwheels.
Is the original intent of ๐ Upside-Down Face up at present meliorate represented by an altogether different emoji, ๐คธ Person Cartwheeling? Did we go information technology all incorrect? If that's the case, just one emoji conveys the proper reaction: ๐.
๐ฃ️ Release & Reception
A 2014 memo to the Unicode Technical Committee encouraged the "rapid incorporation" of dozens of emojis into Unicode. For the inclusion of ๐ Upside-Down Face, information technology cited Gmail's upside-down face and "also a common emoticon," possibly referring to (.-.) or its typographical kin.
Past 2015, Google'southward Gmail upside-down face was added to Unicode as the ๐ Upside-Down Confront as we now know it. Most vendors implement the emoji equally a flipped version of their ๐ Slightly Smiling Face, which telegraphs its own simpering irony.
The appearance of ๐ Upside-Down Face is and has been consequent across platforms, though Microsoft once featured a full-toothed grin. For designs that shadow the emoji, as is articulate in our Apple comparing to a higher place, notation that the gradient goes from light to dark from top downward. While such coloration is consistent across corresponding vendor smiley designs, this vertical orientation may help the states read the emotional expression, and not the concrete head, as inverted.
๐ Upside-Downwardly Face was celebrated in popular media in 2015–16 after its release. On the eve of Apple's update going alive, Mat Whitehead for BuzzFeed hailed the emoji over such beloved characters as ๐ฆ Unicorn Face, ๐ฎ Taco, and ๐ง Cheese his article "PSA: The Upside-Downwards Grin Is The Greatest New Emoji." In this upended glyph, Whitehead immediately saw more than just sarcasm, showcasing its potential for everything from being passive-ambitious to needing a glass of wine after a long twenty-four hour period.
In January 2016, Bustle author Mehak Anwar discussed its power to convey distress:
For me, the upside down face emoji has get a sign of distress. I use information technology to point the emotion we all know also well—totally calm and collected on the exterior, just breaking slowly on the inside.
That same month, Russell Brandom on The Verge pinpointed in ๐ Upside-Downward Face a "gleeful absurdism" while Sophie Kleeman on Mic crowned it every bit a scion to shruggie, delighting in its "awkward sadness":
It screams indifference, but it tin can likewise connote the feeling that the globe is falling apart but y'all still have to wake up in the morning. Or that someone has pissed you off, but yous're grinning because yous similar bathing people in passive aggression.
That keeping-it-together-while-the-world-burns sentiment, very much a function of the internet zeitgeist in the belatedly 2010s, is popularly represented by KC Dark-green's "This is Fine" comic and subsequent meme—to which ๐ Upside-Down Face has besides been compared.
Odyssey weighed in October 2016, expanding ๐ Upside-Down Face's emotional palette to piddling, flirty, barbarous, naive, cocky, and stoic. It'due south versatile, to exist certain—or what lexicographer and Unicode Emoji Subcommittee member Jane Solomon has aptly summed up every bit an "emotional grab-all."
"In that location's an inherent ambivalence to the upside-down smiley," Solomon observed on her website, noting it's at once mad and glad. "The upside-down smiley tin effortlessly oscillate between these seemly disparate emotions in ane compact symbol."
✅ Examples
The meanings of ๐ Upside-Down Face, equally we've already seen, are multifarious, and oft subtle and idiosyncratic.
๐ Upside-Down Face tin express the frustrations of the paradoxical ...
When you miss someone so much but y'all're trying so hard to terminate yourself from missing them. ๐๐
— Kimpoy Feliciano (@kimpoyfeliciano) May 27, 2019
... and the fun of the whimsical.
— Gilded State Warriors (@warriors) May 27, 2019
We can employ it in dizzy self-deprecation ...
Yo i really vicious asleep scrolling on my telephone ๐๐ญ pic.twitter.com/QBRkUHfltT
— Jasmine Chocolate-brown (@JasMeannnn) May 26, 2019
... to look askance at life'south double standards ...
Luv when people say their wearing apparel are "for anybody" just they really hateful sizes iv-12 ๐
— Brodie Lancaster (@brodielancaster) Jan 9, 2018
... or laugh at life's inanities, big and small.
All these toys but a $four.97 storage bin is all he wants to play with. ๐ picture show.twitter.com/iAoWC4CkJi
— Chris Kane (@KATVChris) May 23, 2019
With ๐ Upside-Down Face, it'southward every bit if the world has been turned upside-down—sometimes literally.
ii duos of #JOYAMexico #IcarianGames artists Ten 20 backflips = ๐๐ฒ pic.twitter.com/26KjHsHG55
— Cirque du Soleil (@Cirque) May 27, 2019
๐️ Usage
At present, my concerned emoji-locutors, I oasis't forgotten your questions. Let'southward review:
What is ๐?
Upside-Down Face.
What is ๐ supposed to mean?
It doesn't accept one fixed meaning, simply is mostly used to marking the tone of a message every bit sarcastic, silly, or mildly frustrated.
Are you using ๐ correctly?
I'm non in the business of emoji prescriptivism, or issuing any hard and fast rules about what emojis should exist.
I pursue a descriptivist approach, investigating instead how they are actually used. For ๐ Upside-Down Face, that'southward near ever with an underlying sense of irony, whether in indicating a simple joke—or registering those deeper, more confounding ironies of life that are harder to define. ๐
Source: https://blog.emojipedia.org/emojiology-upside-down-face/
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