The Red Heart (❤️) is currently the second most used emoji on earth, which is exactly why I can no longer use it to express my profound love for you, dear friend. While I respect its 700-year-long era as an icon of love passed down from generation to generation, it is just getting way overplayed, diluted by its own ubiquity. Plastered onto “Like” buttons. Used to confirm the delivery of a burrito (to be fair, it is a great burrito). Tossed into work chats to acknowledge a PDF attachment. This over-use has stripped its power as a symbol for my deep affection and profound joy. These feelings of looOOOooOOoooove burning up inside of me can’t be contained in a vessel covered in the fingerprints of corporate marketing bots and Hallmark anniversary cards.
There are 36 emoji containing hearts1 but nearly 4,000 emoji that aren’t hearts. Why settle for a Yellow Heart (💛) when you can use a Gold Medal (🥇) and shift the vibe from “I cherish our bond” to “We are a high-performing tactical unit”? If that feels cringe to you, then GOOD. It wasn’t FOR YOU ANYWAYS. “It actually only has to make sense to me for me to do it and I don’t feel like explaining it to anyone else”.
To whisper “I love you” in the age of skibidi, one must move past the “Frequently Used” tab and into the pantry that is our emoji picker. The Egg (🥚), the Broccoli (🥦), and the Pizza (🍕) can all say “I care about you,” in a way that may be indecipherable to most everyone on the planet but can mean everything to just you and someone you love.
The following is a very scientific field guide to creating your own seemingly absurd and deeply personal vocabulary of love. Note: Heart emoji remain perfectly acceptable for grandparents, tax accountants, colleagues, the general public regardless if you loooOOOOooOOoove them or not.
How to read this chart:
❤️ → 🫡
the cliché → new hotness
Tactical and Locked-In
Use this approach if you want to treat relationships like a high-functioning partnership or a special ops mission. It’s less about being mushy with your pookie and more about standing on business.
❤️→🫡
Respect / Loyal
Duty bound; “real recognizes real”
💛→🥇
Gold Standard
Top tier; “you’re number one”
🫶→🔗
Deep Connection
“Locked In” / Soulmates
😘→🫵
Direct Affection
“You. I choose you.”
♥️→🫀
Maintenance
My heart aches, literally
💑→🧲
Magnetic
Unavoidable, scientific attraction
💏→💥
Impact
The spark; when worlds collide
The Aura Economy: Post-Sincerity Status
In the Aura Economy, we no longer “have feelings”; we “accrue value.” To use a sparkling heart is to admit you are impressed. To use the Trending Upwards (📈) is to acknowledge that the vibe is currently peaking. This is about prestige, energy, and ensuring your social capital remains at an all-time high.
❤️🔥→🧨
Spicy aura
High intensity or “that’s on fire”
💖→🧸
Adorable Affection
Max aura, cute and precious
💓→📈
Growing Love
Aura is rising, getting more obsessed
🩶→🪨
Pure Aura
Solid, unshakeable, unbothered
❣️→⚡
High Energy
Sudden emphasis; high-voltage sincerity
The Mask: Plausible Deniability
The core of “brain rot” logic. By using mundane, boring, or inanimate objects, you shield yourself from the vulnerability of being perceived as “too thirsty”. Warning: You risk losing aura points if you hide your true feelings for too long.
🤍→🥚
Raw/Minimalist
I’m literally just an egg.
🤎→🥔
Solid/Earthy
Humble but real; grounded solidarity
🖤→🕳️
Vantablack
Lost in abyss of my heart
💝→🎀
Soft Aesthetic
Aesthetic over everything
🩷→🌷
Delicate
Soft pink and like a flower
🩵→🧊
Cold heart
You’re being cold; I’m just here for the chill
❣️→🧾
Exclamation of love
I’m keeping receipts
💘→🧎
Submission
Simp energy; on my knees
Similar but Different
Abstract hearts are replaced with the literal colors, animals, or movements they represent. It’s dry, visual, and I didn’t stutter. It’s a satellite dish. It requires no explanation.
💌→📡
Transmission
Beaming love directly into your brain
🥰→🔋
Affection Received
and I am energized
😍→😻
Obsession
Why use a face when we have a cat?
💙→🌊
Fluidity
We’re in the flow
🧡→🍊
Vibrant/Tangy
Orange but fruitier
💚→🥦
Organic
It’s green.
💕→⛲
Constant Flow
Overflowing; an infinite supply
💗→🌋
Pressure
About to erupt
💞→🔁
Reciprocity
Loop logic; “back at you”
💟→🪁
Lighthearted
Floating; high above the drama
The Effort is the Love
Finding your own emoji voice takes a certain kind of brave, weird confidence. It’s not surprising that this new landscape of “brain rot” and potatoes comes from the very real lived experience of teenagers. We spend our early years trying to fit in, embracing what works, discarding what doesn’t. Wanting to be perceived in one way but not another. Avoiding anything embarrassing at all costs. Rejecting the emoji habits of our elders is a right of passage and so is masking our interior lives because, as teens, we don’t always know how we really feel.
This desire to save face eventually yields into something much better: a signature. When done right, a loved one doesn’t need to ask why you sent them a Pizza (🍕) instead of a heart. They already know. The manual effort of scrolling past four thousand icons just to find that one specific, nonsensical object is the act of love. It’s the digital equivalent of a hand-written note in a world of form letters. What may have began as a way to stay emotionally safe while we navigate the rite of passage that is being a teenager eventually becomes the very thing that binds us.
I love hearing how each generation gets more comfortable with emoji and as a result more experimental with how they express themselves. All of this may seem crazy, but the universe was born from chaos. When the brainrot smoke clears, you are left with something far more durable than a generic symbol: a vocabulary that belongs only to the two of you. 📡
Not including gender/skintone variants. 😘🥰😍😻❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🤎🖤🩶🤍🩷💘💝💖💗💓💞💕💌💟♥️❣️❤️🩹💔❤️🔥🫰🫶💒🏩💏💑 )
A colleague of mine favorably responds to all messages with a duck emoji. His name doesn't sound like duck, he has no associations that I know of with ducks. It's just his emoji response. I 🪩 it.
Love this - excellent point amazingly written! So many adults are afraid of using emoji creatively because we constantly hear of all the unintended meanings young people have given them (especially the fruits and veggies 😅).
All you need is that receiver understands you as intended - either by who they are or by the context you place it in. As it always has been in communication really. I’m bringing parts of this post right into the class I teach in content communication 📡.