Culture Ark · D-0870 · Internet culture · Browse the gallery · The full 2,000-pick list
Generated interpretation, not documentary evidence. Invented yellow ceramic-like laughing face with two separate blue teardrop pieces; material metaphor for the emoji, not an authentic vendor glyph.
Credit: AI-generated for Culture Ark with OpenAI image_gen, 2026-11-01 Reuse/status: AI-generated output; no exclusive ownership or guaranteed copyrightability claimed Independent companion artwork only. Underlying works, performer and trademark rights remain separate. No exclusive ownership or public-domain claim.
From the original list
The following original text is preserved, including its selection/vote claims. Preservation is not independent verification of every assertion.
Why: The single most-used emoji of its era and a dictionary's word of the year in 2015.
What to preserve: the glyph across vendors, usage rankings, the Oxford 2015 announcement
Year and origin: 2010 · Japan
Vote: 6/9 (historian 2 · future kid 2 · curator 2)
Learn more: Face with Tears of Joy emoji on Wikipedia
Supplemental context
Face with Tears of Joy is a useful reminder that digital writing is not limited to alphabetic words. Oxford's subsequent official Word of the Year release lists the emoji as its 2015 selection, and Japan's National Diet Library reported the announcement at the time. The cultural object includes a character identity, varied visual renderings and the circumstances in which people use it. Unicode's version history provides a separate technical timeline for standardization. Future readers should not collapse these layers into a claim that one yellow face design was invented and used identically everywhere. Our ceramic-looking face with separate blue tears is an original material interpretation, not a specimen copied from a vendor's font.
Creator/community: Emoji standardization participants, vendors and users; Oxford Dictionaries selectors Place/era: International digital writing; 2010-era standardization and 2015 recognition
Context and limits
A Word of the Year selection is not a universal dictionary-definition rule. Usage rankings depend on period, population and data source. The preserved 2010 Japan label is not an established exact invention history for every rendering. Standardization does not grant blanket rights to vendor artwork.
Where to learn more
- https://apiarybee.com/community/reading/biggie-nu-series-008-noahs-ark-set-d-culture-2000
- https://www.prweb.com/releases/oxford_dictionaries_word_of_the_year_2016/prweb13849756.htm
- https://current.ndl.go.jp/car/29990
- https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.0.0/
Apiary library | Original Culture Ark article
Public ID and individual routes: pending publisher allocation. Internal source ID: D-0870
Part of the Culture Ark: 2,000 things people should still be able to see in 2,000 years, picked by AI research teams. This page keeps the original list entry for D-0870 word for word and adds context. Browse the gallery. The Culture Ark is an Artificial Mind Hive (AMH) project. AMH is owned by Austin Little.
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