Last week, it was announced iOS 15.4 will include 37 new emojis, including melting smiley faces, brown beans, sexy lip bites and shiny disco balls.
Emojipedia, the emoji reference website, published a first look at the many emoticons coming to our phones in March or April 2022. I, InsideHook’s resident Gen Zer, was tasked with ranking them from worst to best, judging each new emoticon on its appearance, relevance and whether or not I’d actually use it.
37/36. Rightwards Hand and Leftwards Hand
Per Emojipedia, these hand emojis are meant to be used together and were developed so users could employ two different skin-tone modifiers to create diverse handshakes. Sounds great, except Unicode also modified its Handshake emoji in the new 15.4 update to show a multi-racial handshake (see below), so these two left and right hands seem a bit unnecessary.
35. Heavy Equal Sign
An equal sign is set to join the existing set of mathematical symbols already in the Unicode catalog that I never use.
34. Biting Lip
While we have emojis that convey sexual emotions and represent certain genitals, this new emoji is the first overtly horny emoji. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my emojis deliberately sexy. There’s something deeply uncomfortable about this naughty “Biting Lip” emoticon, probably because it reminds me of that cursed Lin-Manuel Miranda lip-biting selfie and will be used predominately by fuckbois.
33/32. Palm Down Hand and Palm Up Hand
Not sure why I’d use this unless I was conveying that I just received Holy Communion at church. However, I’m giving Palm Up Hand points because it’s 100 percent going to be used for something sexual.
31. Index Pointing at the Viewer
Not a fan of this one. Too accusatory.
30. Wheel
Besides using this tire emoji to share you’ve got a flat, Emojipedia notes it can also be used to talk about yourself or someone else being a “third wheel.” Fun.
29. Ring Buoy
For maritime-related convos and photo dumps of you on a boat or when you want to express how something or someone totally saved your life.
28. X-Ray
For when you crack a rib.
27. Crutch
For when you break a leg.
26. Face with Open Eyes and Hand Over Mouth
To squash any confusion, Emojipedia updated Face with Hand Over Mouth, which appears to have smiling eyes on other platforms, in order to match other major vendors. Face with Open Eyes and Hand Over Mouth is one of the seven new smiley emojis added to iOS 15.4, the largest number since the 2017 update.
25. Hand with Index Finger and Thumb Crossed
Snaps for this snapping emoji. It’s giving Woman Tipping Hand energy.
24. Identification Card
Convenient for reminding your friends to bring their ID to the bar. Also convenient if you’re a college freshman asking if a 21+ establishment cards.
23. Jar
While it’s a relatively simple emoticon of an empty jar, you can use it to talk about all the good stuff that comes in jars: sauces, jams, pickles and fancy mustard.
22. Low Battery
When your social battery is drained and you have to bail on plans, soften the blow with this depleted emoji.
21/20. Empty Nest and Nest with Eggs
I probably will never use these emojis personally, but shoutout to the birders who will.
19. Coral
Another emoji for your snorkeling pictures.
18. Lotus
That influencer you follow who does at-home yoga and writes annoyingly wordy paragraphs of faux-meaningful BS about it is gonna be all over this one.
17. Playground Slide
Patiently waiting for this to become the universal sign for “sliding into the DMs.”
16. Pouring Liquid
“Pouring Liquid” can represent myriad things: pouring one out for an individual, spilling some hot goss or describing a messy, dunk time you (or someone else) had the night before.
15. Face Holding Back Tears
An emoji designed solely to react to videos of babies and puppies.
14. Saluting Face
Pay your respects with this saluting emoji whose face is half cut off in Emojipedia’s first look for some reason.
13. Hamsa
An ancient religious symbol that has a multitude of meanings, representing luck, protection and feminine power, to name a few.
12. Heart Hands
Taylor Swift’s influence.
11. Face with Peeking Eye
For when your friend shows you the dating profile of the person they’re talking to.
10. Handshake
Unicode is adding 25 new versions of the handshake emoji for Apple devices, which previously offered only five variants where both hands share the same skin tone
9/8. Pregnant Man and Pregnant Person
Continuing its inclusivity and gender consistency efforts, Unicode is also adding a Pregnant Man and non-gender-specifying Pregnant Person emoji. Some online critics were pissed about the progressive emojis, of course, because some people have nothing better to do than yell at a sticker.
7. Person with Crown
The title “Dancing Queen” transcends gender.
6. Face with Diagonal Mouth
Always happy to have another smiley to express life’s daily nuisances and frustrations.
5. Dotted Line Face
According to Emojipedia, this muted natural face, depicted through a dotted outline is a reference to an established comic book trope: “dotted lines around a character can represent someone that is invisible or hidden. It can also represent smallness, submissiveness, isolation, and depression.” Another bleak one, I suppose, but I can’t help but adore this glum little smiley.
4. Beans
Bean Dad has to be responsible for this.
3. Troll
Users may commonly employ this green club-wielding troll to refer to internet trolls or the act of “trolling.” I, however, will use this precious little creature when I look and feel like a literal troll.
2. Mirror Ball
Move over Butterfly and Sparkles emojis, there’s a new aesthetic emoji ready to dominate every “it” girl’s social media bio (including mine).
1. Melting Face
The Melting Face smiley is the perfect match for our current hellscape. Out of the 3,633 emojis we have, none has spoken to me quite like this yellow smiley face melting into a puddle of itself. Probably because it is, again, the quintessential visual proxy for all the disastrous shit happening in the background of our day-to-day lives. I cannot wait to annoyingly overuse it.
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