【eroticism saves the earth】

Times right now are eroticism saves the earth... weird, and your emoji use proves it.

Or, rather, we should say your disuse. That's because everyone's once-favorite way to pictorially say haha omg that shit is so hilarious I'm crying right now, the so-called "Tears of Joy" emoji, has experienced a major falloff in use.

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You know the one. This little dude: 😂.

According to Emojipedia, while the TOJ emoji is still popular, its use seems to have peaked in early 2017. These days, people are turning less and less to our jovial friend and more and more to its coked-up Dadaist cousin: Rolling on the Floor Laughing (🤣).

Whereas Tears of Joy invited you to share in a moment of brief respite from the madness all around, ROFL demands that you throw caution to the wind and embrace the chaos with absurdity-fueled arms. When Tears of Joy suggested that, just perhaps, there may have been a reason for laughter in the world, ROFL laughs at the world itself.

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And, well, shit. It's not like any of that is wrong.

A graph from Emojipedia helps to put things in perspective. TOJ is still kicking ROFL's ass in terms of pure numbers (so all you ride or die TOJers out there can breathe easy), but even with society collapsing in on itself we can still see which way the emoji winds are blowing.

Specifically, they're blowing us onto the floor. Where we'll no doubt remain. Laughing.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Now, it's important to note that this data comes from emoji page views on Emojipedia — not, say, records of actual usage in text-based conversations. However, the site does a decent job of explaining why that's a good proxy.

Without "one true source of emoji data," there isn't a foolproof way to determine which emoji are used most often, writes Emojipedia Editor in Chief Jeremy Burge. "Emojipedia page view data tends to track fairly closely to usage on public platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and as such seems a reasonable method of determining popularity over time."

And anyway, there's room for both TOJ and ROFL in these surrealist times. Just, whatever you do, stay the hell away from the Upside-Down Face. We're not that far gone.

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