What does the upside-down emoji mean?

If you ever find yourself confused by trends in online messaging, don’t beat yourself up about it — internet trends move so quickly that even people who are constantly connected can find themselves out of the loop. One potentially baffling thing in chat these days is the upside-down smile emoji, which can have several different meanings based on context.

What does the upside-down emoji mean?

Irony/sarcasm

This is one of the most common uses, since it’s relatively easy to decipher from context, and potentially even important if there’s a chance your message could be mistaken as serious opinion.

• “That corporate team-building meeting sounds like blast🙃”

Humor/silliness

Even with non-ironic messages, people sometimes want to make it clear they’re just joking around or having fun.

• “Hell yeah, that was soooo funny 🙃”

Embarrassment

Here usage takes the edge off of an uncomfortable topic, or something a person said or did by accident. As you’d expect, a frequent example is apologizing for texting the wrong person.

• “Oops, sorry. 🙃 That was meant for Mahelia”

Flirting

Playing off the humor and embarrassment angles, people might sometimes use the emoji to keep dating and sex talk light — possibly too light if you’re talking about topics like falling in love or going exclusive.

• “Let’s hang out at my place this weekend 🙃”
• “I like you, but let’s save the relationship talk for a little later 🙃”

Frustration

The upside-down emoji can sometimes be preferable to angry characters when complaining if you don’t want to come across as furious. With that said, you have to be careful, as a message could be interpreted as a joke, passive-aggressive, or not taking things seriously enough, depending on the circumstances.

• “WordPress messed up my link formatting once again. 🙃”