Yes, pictures tell no lies: what you see above is the “face with tears of joy” emoji and it was chosen as the word of the year for 2015. This emoji is obviously not a word, but it was chosen because the good people at Oxford felt that it best reflected the ethos, mood and preoccupations of 2015. Apparently this was the most popular of all emojis this year (in our opinion, proof that everyone feels the need to be overenthusiastic in social media… the smiley face is just insulting nowadays), making up 20% of emojis used in the UK and 17% in the US.
While undoubtedly popular, an emoji is not a word and call us purists, but we think this is all very silly. Anywa, it is interesting and could be a fun debate over the water cooler. Acutal words or terms that made it into the short list were: sharing economy, they, on fleek, ad blocker, refugee, Brexil, dark web and lumbersexual.
If you are unsure about any of the meanings, would like to read more about why Oxford chose this emoji as their word of the year, would like to watch some slightly odd videos, take an emoji quiz or learn about the history of the emoji, visit their site.