Face Holding Back Tears Emoji

A yellow face with large, glistening eyes on the verge of tears and a small, wavering smile. The face of someone who's been so deeply moved that they're about to cry, but holding it together. Barely. Emojipedia describes it as conveying "the effort to resist crying while experiencing strong emotions like overwhelming gratitude, pride, admiration, tenderness, or bittersweet joy mixed with sadness." That covers a lot of emotional ground, and that's exactly why 🥹 exploded in popularity.

The emoji won Most Popular New Emoji at the 2022 World Emoji Awards, beating 🫶 Heart Hands and 🫠 Melting Face. It filled an emotional gap that had existed in the emoji set for years: the feeling of being so touched that you're on the edge of tears but still smiling. Before 🥹, your options were 😭 (too dramatic, too sad), 🥺 (too pleading, too needy), or 😢 (just sad). 🥹 captures the specific feeling of positive overwhelm, the "I can't believe how sweet this is" or "I'm so proud of you" moment where the tears are happy ones.

What makes 🥹 special is what proposed it into existence. The emoji was designed by Neil Cohn, a cognitive scientist who studies the visual language of comics and manga, in collaboration with Jennifer Daniel, Google's chief emoji designer and chair of Unicode's Emoji Subcommittee. Their Unicode proposal (L2/20-064) drew on research about how comics and manga represent facial expressions. Because many early emoji were based on manga conventions, Cohn and Daniel used the Visual Language Lab's extensive research to identify emotional expressions that were missing from the emoji vocabulary.

🥹 has become the internet's "aww" button. On TikTok, it's the top comment under pet videos, proposal videos, reunion clips, and any content that's genuinely heartwarming. There are 2.7 million TikTok posts tagged with the emoji. On Instagram, it's the reaction to baby photos, wedding announcements, and friendship appreciation posts. In K-pop fandoms, it's used when idols do something sweet for fans or each other.

In group chats, 🥹 is the response when a friend shares genuinely good news: "I got the job 🥹" or "She said yes 🥹." It's also become a gratitude emoji: "Thank you so much, I don't deserve you 🥹" or "This message made my whole day 🥹." The emoji works because it conveys vulnerability without negativity. Unlike 😭 (which can be overwhelm in any direction), 🥹 is almost always positive. You're about to cry, but the tears are the good kind.

At work, it's surprisingly appropriate for celebrating wins: "The product launched 🥹" or "Your promotion came through 🥹" reads as genuine pride and warmth. It's more emotionally honest than 👏 and warmer than 🎉.

Most emoji arrive through a straightforward proposal process. 🥹 arrived through science.

Neil Cohn, an American cognitive scientist at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, has spent his career studying the visual language of comics and manga. He runs the Visual Language Lab, which researches how people understand visual narratives. His work revealed something important about emoji: because many early emoji were based on Japanese manga facial expression conventions, there was a scientifically identifiable gap in the emotional expressions the emoji set could convey.

Cohn partnered with Jennifer Daniel, Google's chief emoji designer and the chair of Unicode's Emoji Subcommittee, to propose faces that filled those gaps. Together they submitted L2/20-064 in November 2019, proposing the Face Holding Back Tears. Their collaboration also produced 🫠 Melting Face, 😮‍💨 Face Exhaling, and 🫥 Dotted Line Face. Drawing on Cohn's research into how manga artists represent complex emotions through minimal facial cues, they designed faces that expressed emotional states the existing set couldn't reach.

🥹 filled the gap for "positive overwhelm," the feeling of being so deeply moved that tears well up but the smile remains. Before it existed, 😭 was too dramatic, 🥺 was too needy, 😢 was just sad, and 😿 was a cat. None of them captured "happy tears with composure." The emoji was approved in Unicode 14.0 (2021) and immediately won Most Popular New Emoji at the 2022 World Emoji Awards, confirming that Cohn's research had correctly identified a gap people felt but couldn't articulate.

Approved in Unicode 14.0 (2021) as U+1F979U+1F979 FACE HOLDING BACK TEARS. Added to Emoji 14.0 in September 2021. Derived from proposal L2/20-064, submitted November 16, 2019 and revised February 4, 2020. Proposed by Neil Cohn (cognitive scientist and comics theorist) and Jennifer Daniel (Google emoji design lead, Unicode Emoji Subcommittee chair). Part of the same Unicode 14.0 batch as 🫠, 🫶, 🫡 Saluting Face, and 🫣 Face with Peeking Eye. Available on iOS 15.4 and Android 12L from early 2022.

• 🇨🇳
  破防 (pò fáng) — 'breaking through defenses': Originally military slang for breaking an enemy's defensive line. By 2020 the term [migrated into Chinese internet culture (notably Bilibili)](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%A0%B4%E9%98%B2) to mean 'this content broke past my emotional defenses.' Used as a verb in barrage comments under tearjerker videos. The closest single-word translation of 🥹's exact feeling.
• 🇵🇭
  Kilig — 'butterflies + chill': Filipino word for the giddy, romantic-overwhelm flutter. [Linguists describe it](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kilig) as a physical sensation: the spine-chill plus stomach-flutter when someone says the right thing. Closest English equivalent is 'butterflies' but kilig carries a wholesomeness 'butterflies' lacks. Used as both noun and adjective in Tagalog text.
• 🇯🇵
  涙腺崩壊 (ruōsen hōkai): Japanese, literally 'lacrimal-gland collapse.' Anime fan slang from the 2000s, used for moments when crying becomes involuntary, especially during reunion or sacrifice scenes. The dramatic register is a gentle hyperbole, the speaker isn't actually weeping, just signaling that the feels broke through.
• 🇪🇸
  Se me parte el alma — 'my soul splits': Spanish idiom common in Latin America and Spain for being deeply moved, usually positively but sometimes with bittersweet weight. The metaphor of the soul cracking open captures 🥹's 'too full to contain it' register exactly. Used in personal text and in lyrics across the Spanish-language pop canon.
• 🇮🇹
  Commozione — 'commotion of feeling': Italian for being overcome by emotion, with a specific positive register that English 'commotion' has lost. Politicians, athletes, and family members all use it on Italian TV when they choke up at podiums and reunions. The Italian press treats it as an admirable quality, not a loss of composure.
• 🇩🇪
  Geht mir an die Nieren — 'goes to my kidneys': German idiom for 'this affects me deeply.' The kidney-as-emotional-seat metaphor is older than scientific anatomy. Used in both positive and negative contexts, but the positive one is the closest German has to 🥹's register. Older speakers reach for it more than younger ones.

1. 2019Neil Cohn and Jennifer Daniel submit proposal L2/20-064 to Unicode (November 16, revised February 2020)↗
2. 2021Unicode 14.0 approves 🥹 as U+1F979 FACE HOLDING BACK TEARS (September)↗
3. 2022Arrives on iOS 15.4 and Android 12L. Wins Most Popular New Emoji at World Emoji Awards, beating 🫶 and 🫠↗
4. 2024Loses to 🫠 Melting Face in the Most 2024 Emoji final, a rematch of the 2022 bracket↗

• •🥹 was proposed by Neil Cohn, a cognitive scientist who studies the visual language of comics and manga, in collaboration with Jennifer Daniel, Google's emoji design lead and Unicode Emoji Subcommittee chair. Their proposal (L2/20-064) drew on research about how manga represents facial expressions.
• •The same Cohn-Daniel collaboration also produced 🫠 Melting Face, 😮‍💨 Face Exhaling, and 🫥 Dotted Line Face. 🥹 and 🫠 became rivals in the World Emoji Awards, with 🥹 winning Most Popular New Emoji in 2022 and 🫠 dominating the Most Emoji category for three consecutive years.
• •There are 2.7 million TikTok posts tagged with the holding back tears emoji, making it one of the most-used new emojis on the platform.
• •🥹 filled a gap that existed since the original emoji set: no face could express "positive overwhelm" (happy tears with composure). 😭 was too dramatic, 🥺 was too needy, 😢 was just sad. The cognitive science research behind the proposal identified this gap with academic precision.
• •K-pop fandoms adopted 🥹 faster than any other demographic. Stan Twitter uses it for concert announcements, comeback teasers, and member interactions that trigger the "I'm so proud I could cry" feeling. It's the emoji of being emotionally wrecked by someone you admire.
• •The Unicode proposal specifically cited manga conventions for its design: the shimmering, oversized eyes come from the manga technique of drawing light reflections in watery eyes to signal suppressed emotion. A cognitive scientist literally studied comics to design this emoji.
• •Psychologist Oriana Aragón found that more than 75% of people have cried tears of joy at some point. 🥹 describes a majority experience, not a rare one. Most "I'm not usually emotional, but..." disclaimers are wrong about themselves.
• •Aragón's cross-cultural work found Americans typically respond to victory with clenched jaws and pumping fists, while Koreans are more likely to respond with a sad-looking or crying face. 🥹 is closer to the default Korean victory response than the default American one, which is part of why it took off in K-pop fandoms first.
• •Dimorphous expressions exist to restore emotional balance, according to Aragón. People who cry at happy moments recover from strong emotions faster than people who don't. 🥹 isn't an overreaction. It's a regulation tool with a face.
• •Super Bowl ad analysts found that 80% of commercials mix at least one negative emotion with happiness, and the highest-liked ads all follow the dimorphous recipe. When a brand wants you to cry-laugh at a 30-second spot, they're deliberately engineering the 🥹 response.
• •Virat Kohli's 2025 retirement post crossed 20 million Instagram likes, and 🥹 dominated reply sections across Indian, British, and global cricket audiences. It's one of the clearest cases of 🥹 operating as a multilingual, cross-fandom shared response to non-tragic loss.
• •Andy Murray's Paris 2024 Olympic farewell was drenched in 🥹 responses. British sports Twitter, historically allergic to public emotion, defaulted to the emoji when words felt like too much. The composure baked into 🥹's design (smile intact, tears not yet falling) matches British emotional norms surprisingly well.
• •The same Aragón research found that people verbally flag their dimorphous expressions when around non-dimorphous friends, saying "these are happy tears, these are happy tears" aloud. 🥹 is the emoji that performs that disclaimer for you, no explanation needed.

• •Some people confuse 🥹 with 🥺, but they express different emotions. 🥺 pleads for something ("please?"). 🥹 reacts to something received ("I can't believe how sweet that was"). The direction of need is opposite.
• •Using 🥹 sarcastically doesn't work as well as sarcastic 🙃 or 😇. The emotion it conveys (being moved to tears) is too specific and sincere for irony to stick. If you send it ironically, people will probably take it at face value.
• •In some East Asian cultures where emotional restraint is valued differently, 🥹 can read as overly expressive. Be aware that vulnerability norms vary across cultures.

• •🥹 (Face Holding Back Tears) arrived in Unicode 14.0 (2021) and filled the gap between 🥺 (pleading) and 😢 (crying). It was immediately adopted for happy-crying moments.
• •K-pop and anime fandoms adopted 🥹 for "bias wrecker" moments when someone other than your favorite member makes you emotional.