WhatsApp: What does the hot face emoji mean?

The mass popularity acquired by emoticons has generated a new way of communicating moods, feelings, reactions and even complete sentences. However, despite having the same Unicode encoding, its interpretation is subject to different cultural contexts depending on the environment of the person who uses them, especially when different platforms such as WhatsApp have their own design. This is the case with the hot face emoji.

It is a reddish-orange face with furrowed eyebrows, a protruding tongue, and beads of sweat on its face, as if it were suffering from the effects of high temperatures.

All manufacturers of web services, operating systems or devices can create Emoji designs according to their own corporate style and version, so the number and position of the sweat beads vary between platforms.

Also the color can change between yellow or red. Mostly developers use expressions that are actually variants of the sweaty anxious face, or the sad but relieved face.

In its literal definition, the hot emoji means that it is hot or speaking of the environmental temperature, either on a summer day or from entering a sauna. However, the meanings that users give to the icon can range from physical exhaustion, having participated in a marathon, or simply having had a difficult day at work.

It can also represent physical attractiveness by the slang of hot, an informal language used to refer to someone sexy.

The Hot Face emoji was approved as part of Unicode 11.0 in 2018 under the name “Overheated Face” and was later added to Emoji 11.0 that same year.