Cat with Tears of Joy

The 😹 Cat with Tears of Joy emoji was added in Unicode 6 (2010) and is drawn as an orange cat face with closed scrunched eyes, an open smile, and visible streams of tears of joy pouring down. The visual cue reads instantly as cat laughing-crying, joy-cat coded, or the visible 'cat is dying of laughter' tag. By 2026 😹 has become the go-to emoji for the cat joy-coded reaction, the visible 'cat is dying of laughter' default, and the laugh-crying-cat coded reaction in close-friends and family chats.

In modern chat 😹 does very specific work. People send it as a literal joy-cat reaction, as the visible 'cat is dying of laughter' tag, or as the laugh-crying-cat default. The orange cat face and streams of joy-tears are the visual cue that the read is joy-cat-coded. Writers should pick 😹 when the read is cat laugh-crying or visible 'cat is dying' energy, and avoid it when the read is human-only 😂 — 😂 fits better there.

😹 lands on a friend's hilarious cat-coded meme, in a work channel where someone is signaling cat-laugh energy, and in a dating-app DM where the sender is reacting to something hilarious. The orange cat face and joy-tears anchor the read.

In close-friends chats 😹 reads as the universal joy-cat default and the visible 'cat is dying of laughter' tag. On X the emoji punctuates cat-laugh-coded and joy-cat tweets. The emoji pairs with 😂 for the layered laughing-crying stack and with 🙀 for the layered cat-pair stack.

Skip 😹 in any context where the read is human-only joy. The cat face implies feline-coded. Avoid 😹 in sad contexts where the joy-coded read could be misread as dismissive.

If a friend sends 😹 on a joy-cat-coded message, mirror with another 😹 or 😂 to match the energy. The laugh chain reads as solidarity.

If 😹 lands as the laugh-crying-cat default, reply with another 😹 or 🙀. And if you want to send 😹 yourself, pair it with the moment so the joy-cat read is clear.