A face mid-expression, cracking under strain, approved in Emoji 18.0 alongside Unicode 18.0 on September 16, 2026. Final, but no phone or computer shows it by default yet. Click to copy the codepoint anyway.
Cracking Face (, U+1FAEB) is one of the new emoji in Emoji 18.0, the emoji companion to Unicode 18.0, which became final on September 16, 2026. It depicts a face mid-expression with a visible crack, read by most coverage as emotional strain or "breaking" while still smiling, a fit for the Gen-Z "I'm fine" meme, where someone looks composed on the outside while overwhelmed underneath. Its codepoint has a specific history: U+1FAEB was originally reserved for a different proposed emoji, "Face With Squinting Eyes," before the Unicode Emoji Standard & Research Working Group recommended replacing it with Cracking Face in January 2026. The name is now settled: Unicode 18.0's character data lists U+1FAEB as CRACKING FACE. Being final is not the same as being on your phone, though. Google has published its design in the Noto Color Emoji font, but as of September 25, 2026, no phone or computer shows it by default, so expect a blank box or placeholder glyph until platforms ship support. Emojipedia estimates the first updates in the first quarter of 2027 (WhatsApp and Samsung), Apple around March or April 2027 and Microsoft in late summer or early fall 2027, estimates based on last year's rollout.
The final character itself: copyable today as a codepoint, even though no phone or computer shows it by default yet.
Need more than this one? Browse the full set in Face Emojis →
Cracking Face isn't the only new emoji in this release: these were approved alongside it on September 16, 2026, and are equally unrendered on most devices for now.
Cracking Face's final name and codepoint, U+1FAEB CRACKING FACE, are in Unicode 18.0's emoji-test.txt data file, released with the Unicode Consortium's Unicode 18.0 announcement on September 16, 2026. Emojipedia reported Google's Noto Color Emoji designs and published the 2027 rollout estimates.
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A Unicode 18.0 character, published 16 September 2026.