Proposal sketch. This emoji isn’t on keyboards yet, targeted for September 2026 (targeted).
Cracking Face Emoji
U+1FAEB:cracking_face:About Cracking Face [cracking-face]
Cracking Face () is part of the Smileys & Emotion group in Unicode. Added in Unicode E18.0. Type on GitHub and Slack to use it. Click copy above to grab it, paste it anywhere.
Works in iMessage, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, Instagram, Twitter, Gmail, and every app that supports Unicode.
Often associated with cracking, face, crack, and 3 more keywords.
Meaning varies across cultures, see cultural notes below.
Scroll down for the full story: meaning, trends, combos, and more.
How it will look
Vendor designs won’t exist until Unicode 18.0 ships. These are the proposal sketches and reference designs Unicode used to evaluate the candidate.
The 72px sample from the original 'Cracked Smiling Face' proposal.
Page 1 of the proposal: keywords include mask, duality, hidden identity, reveal, transformation, fragile, drought, dry. The 'closest existing emoji' is 🫠 Melting Face.
'Use in sequences' page walking through the canonical combos: +🎉 for 'I survived,' 😊 as 'I'm fine / carefully crafted facade cracking,' 🩹😮💨 for the temporary-repair mental-health narrative.
What does it mean?
[cracking-face] Cracking Face is a smiley whose surface is literally fracturing, drawn with visible cracks running across the cheeks and forehead as if the yellow shell is about to shatter. The proposal (authored by Jennifer Daniel, Unicode Emoji Subcommittee chair) explicitly pitches it as a companion to 🫠 Melting Face, 🫨 Shaking Face, and Distorted Face in the expanding "face under pressure" family: four emotional failure modes that overlap and diverge.
The key positioning: 🫠 melts (slow, soft, ironic acceptance, "this is fine"). 🫨 shakes (sudden external shock). distorts (warped by overwhelm). [cracking-face] cracks (the brittle one, holding composure until a single tap shatters it). The proposal specifically calls out the 😊[cracking-face] combination as the "I'm fine" meme: appearing happy on the outside while internally fracturing.
Expect this to land hard in mental-health and burnout discourse, finance Twitter (portfolio down 40%), Sunday-night-before-Monday posts, and any reply where the sender is about three words away from snapping. The proposal cited approximately 809 million Google search results for "cracked face" as evidence of unmet metaphorical demand.
The "face under pressure" family
Cracking (2026?)Emoji combos
Four failure modes, compared
Origin story
[cracking-face] Cracking Face was drafted in May 2025 by Jennifer Daniel, chair of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee, under the original name 'Cracked Smiling Face.' The proposal pitched it as a deliberate companion to 🫠 Melting Face (2021), 🫨 Shaking Face (2023), and Distorted Face (2025), filling the remaining gap in Unicode's expanding 'failure mode' face family: the brittle-snap variant that none of the others capture.
In January 2026, the Unicode Technical Committee removed 'Face With Squinting Eyes' from the Emoji 18.0 draft and reassigned the slot to Cracking Face, per Emojipedia's draft coverage. It remains a draft: the name, design, and final inclusion can still change before Emoji 18.0 ratification in September 2026.
Read the proposal
Other Emoji 18.0 draft candidates
Meteor
PickleCracking Face
LighthouseDesign history
- 2021🫠 Melting Face ships in Emoji 14.0, quickly becoming Gen Z shorthand for 'this is fine' and ironic embarrassment. First face in the modern 'under pressure' register.
- 2023🫨 Shaking Face ships in Emoji 15.1. Adds sudden-shock reaction to the family.
- 2025 Distorted Face ships in Emoji 17.0. Adds the overwhelmed-warping variant.
- 2025Jennifer Daniel submits [L2/26-048 'Cracked Smiling Face'](https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2026/26048-cracked-smiling-face-emoji.pdf) on May 10, pitching the brittle-snap fourth variant.
- 2026January: Face With Squinting Eyes removed from Emoji 18.0 draft; the slot is reassigned to Cracking Face.
- 2026Targeted for Emoji 18.0 ratification in September, with vendor font rollout through late 2026 into 2027.
Not yet. As of April 2026, [cracking-face] Cracking Face is part of the Emoji 18.0 draft candidate set. The Unicode Technical Committee can still rename, redesign, or reject it. Emoji 18.0 is targeted for ratification in September 2026.
A yellow smiley face with visible cracks running across the surface like a fractured shell. Mouth pulled back in a grimace or flat line. Eyes typically open and worried. Base color matches other yellow smileys.
Jennifer Daniel, chair of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee, authored the proposal (L2/26-048) on May 10, 2025 under the original title 'Cracked Smiling Face.' She also shepherded 🫠 and through committee.
Around the world
English-language social media
Will likely become burnout and mental-health shorthand immediately, extending the work 🫠 has been doing since 2021. Expect it in reply guy culture, 'quit my job' content, and 'one more email' tweets.
Finance and markets
Portfolio-crash posts on X (formerly Twitter) already lean heavily on 📉🫠. Expect [cracking-face] to replace 🫠 in the hardest-hit posts: the ones where you're not ironically accepting, you're actually losing it.
Japan
Kaomoji culture already has the equivalent: (・`ω´・;) and 汗 (sweat drop) modifiers signal composure under strain. [cracking-face] will translate cleanly because the 'keeping face' concept is core to Japanese communication.
Korea
정신줄 놓다 (losing the mental thread) is a common expression. [cracking-face] is a natural visual fit, likely to get absorbed into 힘들다 (overwhelmed) replies alongside 🫠.
In January 2026, the Unicode Technical Committee reviewed the Emoji 18.0 draft and determined Cracking Face had a stronger metaphorical case (roughly 809M 'cracked face' Google results and a clear gap in the 'face under pressure' family). Face With Squinting Eyes was pulled and the slot was reassigned.
Often confused with
🫠 melts: a slow, soft collapse, ironic acceptance, "this is fine." [cracking-face] cracks: a hard, brittle fracture, holding on until you suddenly aren't. Same emotional family, opposite physics.
🫠 melts: a slow, soft collapse, ironic acceptance, "this is fine." [cracking-face] cracks: a hard, brittle fracture, holding on until you suddenly aren't. Same emotional family, opposite physics.
🫨 Shaking Face is a sudden external shock (something just happened). [cracking-face] is internal slow-building pressure that finally breaks.
🫨 Shaking Face is a sudden external shock (something just happened). [cracking-face] is internal slow-building pressure that finally breaks.
Distorted Face warps and bulges under stress. [cracking-face] cracks cleanly, like dropped porcelain. Distorted = malleable. Cracking = brittle.
Distorted Face warps and bulges under stress. [cracking-face] cracks cleanly, like dropped porcelain. Distorted = malleable. Cracking = brittle.
😬 Grimacing Face is everyday discomfort without damage. [cracking-face] adds visible fractures, signaling that the composure is about to fail.
😬 Grimacing Face is everyday discomfort without damage. [cracking-face] adds visible fractures, signaling that the composure is about to fail.
Different failure modes. 🫠 melts: slow, soft collapse, ironic acceptance, 'this is fine.' [cracking-face] cracks: hard, brittle fracture, 'holding it together' until you suddenly aren't. They complement each other: [cracking-face]🫠 reads as break-then-dissolve.
Caption ideas
Fun facts
- •[cracking-face] was drafted by Jennifer Daniel, chair of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee. She also shepherded 🫠 Melting Face (2021) and Distorted Face (2025), making her the de facto architect of the 'under pressure' face family.
- •The original proposal title was 'Cracked Smiling Face,' not 'Cracking Face.' The name can still change before Emoji 18.0 ratification.
- •'Cracked face' returned approximately 809 million Google search results at the time of the proposal, which Unicode cited as evidence of unmet metaphorical demand.
- •[cracking-face] replaced 'Face With Squinting Eyes' on the Emoji 18.0 draft list in January 2026. The squinting face was pulled after consultation with the Emoji Standard & Research Working Group.
- •The proposal explicitly calls out the 😊[cracking-face] combination as the emoji version of the 'I'm fine' meme: composed on the surface, fracturing beneath.
- •The 'face under pressure' family now spans four emoji covering four failure modes: melt (🫠), shake (🫨), distort (), crack ([cracking-face]). Unicode has been quietly building an emotional physics system in the smiley register.
- •Emoji 14.0's 🫠 became Gen Z's top 'relatable distress' emoji within six months of launch, according to usage tracking cited in Emojipedia coverage. Expect [cracking-face] to compete for that slot.
- •[cracking-face] shares the U+1FAE range with other recent emotional-register faces (🫠 at U+1FAE0, 🫨 at U+1FAE8, at U+1FAEA, [cracking-face] at U+1FAEB). Unicode grouped them deliberately.
Trivia
Related Emojis
More Smileys & Emotion
All Smileys & Emotion emojis →
Share this emoji
2,000+ emojis deeply researched. One click to copy. No ads.
Open eeemoji →