The most popular emojis in the world (and the ones we NEVER use)

It’s safe to say that emojis have slowly taken over the technological world.

Gone are the days where we were restricted to just happy and unhappy faces (conveyed by the classic colon and open/closed bracket) – we now have a plethora of tiny images at our fingertips to help us communicate with our friends.

In fact, the power of the emoji is so strong that these digital icons now have their very own holiday (World Emoji Day is on July 17th if you’re wondering), and even an upcoming movie featuring talent from the likes of James Corden and Sir Patrick Stewart (in UK cinemas on 4th August).

From shrimp to rockets and anger to angels, there isn’t much missing from our emoji keyboards these days, but which ones do us users love the most?

Here we take a look at five of the most popular emojis in the world:

1. Heart Eyes

Back in 2015, the Face With Tears Of Joy emoji was so popular that Oxford Dictionaries named it their ‘Word of the Year’, with the same emoji being consistently listed as one of the most used on social media. However, in honour of World Emoji Day earlier this month, Mark Zuckerberg released the most used emojis on Facebook and the Heart Eyes emoji was emulating Face With Tears Of Joy’s success.

In fact, in Mexico and Brazil Heart Eyes was the most used emoji on social media and a study conducted by the University of Michigan found that it was the top emoji used in text messaging in Colombia and Argentina.

2. Red Heart

Proving that emoji-users are all about the peace and love, the Red Heart is another incredibly popular icon, with it being the top emoji for France, and one of the most-used emojis on Twitter in 2016.

Interestingly, seven out of the ten most used emojis in France are love hearts, with two of the remaining being Heart Eyes and Face Throwing A Kiss.

To be honest, we wouldn’t expect any different from the home of the City of Love.

3. Thumbs Up

Twitter also revealed that the Thumbs Up emoji is one of the most popular on the micro-blogging site, and is even the most tweeted emoji in Germany and Australia – a stark contrast to the UK, USA and Canada’s most used emoji on Twitter: the distraught-looking Weary Face.

4. See-No-Evil Monkey

The playful emoji monkeys are three of the most-loved among young people, with many using the See-No-Evil one as a cheeky response to things that they’d rather not have seen on social media.

See-No-Evil is the most popular of the three monkeys and is one of the top emoji reactions on Twitter, alongside the 100 and Fire ones.

5. Pile Of Poop

Apologies for lowering the tone but studies have found that the smiling Pile Of Poop emoji is one of the world’s favourites, with it even finding its way into emoji merchandise, such as balloons and cushions. The character has proved so popular that it’s also going to be featured in the new ‘Emoji Movie’ and is voiced by none other than Patrick Stewart!

The founder of Emojipedia, Jeremy Burge, reckons that the Poop’s flexibility is why it is so popular, saying: “It’s a mixed meaning. It’s smiling, so it’s happy, but it’s poop.

“You can use it in any context.”

The least popular emojis

Among all of the love, good vibes and, erm, poop, there are some emojis that are often overlooked – the empty Bathtub, the Hammer, and the gust of wind (which you’d probably be surprised to know is officially named the ‘Dashing Away’ emoji), to name a few.

Emojitracker is a website that tracks real-time emoji use on Twitter, assessing millions of tweets at any given time.

Although the order of the top 100 emojis used is often subject to change, the least-popular emojis are more apparent, and at the time of writing these are the five least-loved emojis according to the site:

1. Suspension Railway [used just 82,097 times]

2. Non Potable Water [used just 87,996 times]

3. Input Latin Lowercase [used just 97,890 times]

4. Passport Control [used just 99,477 times]

5. Mountain Cableway [used just 102,518 times]

For comparison, the most-popular emojis have been used over 1.7billion times.

Although, to be honest, when you compare Non Potable Water to Pile Of Poo, there really is no competition, is there?

‘Emoji Movie’ is released in UK cinemas on 4th August (with special previews on 2nd and 3rd August).