2025 / Lifetime Achievement

This is the big one! Each year we celebrate a range of new and upcoming emoji, but also like to give a nod to the all time bests — the emoji we keep coming back to time and time again.

That’s the Lifetime Achievement award. Given to the cream of the crop. It highlights some of the most popular and notable emoji of all time. Past winners have included the likes of 🤣, ❤️ and 😭.

The 2025 winner, as announced on the Emojipedia blog, is the ever so ooey-gooey 🫠 Melting Face Emoji!

The 🫠 Melting Face glyph is the youngest-ever emoji to win the coveted Lifetime Achievement Award. But that begs the question - why this emoji, and what exactly does it mean? The team at Emojipedia explain in full.