Powercry

About

Powercry, also known as Cry Emoji and Shy Emoji, refers to several Cursed Emoji variations distinguished by large eyes, uneven outline and the appearance of either being shy, about to cry or crying. On the Cursed Emoji chart, A2 is a Powercry variation.

Origin

On November 28th, 2018, Twitter artist @OkayRoutt posted two side-by-side drawings of an emoji crying and looking about to cry. The post received over 130 retweets and over 410 likes in one year (shown below).^[1]

On February 22nd, 2019, @OkayRoutt posted a video based on the images, accompanied by an autotuned sound of a baby crying.^[2] The video received over 2,200 retweets and over 6,200 likes in seven months, with the video accumulating over 149,000 views (shown below).

i drew some cute faces and made a cute song and its very pleasant to the ears :^) pic.twitter.com/292fGPUB7L

— 🎶Routt🎶 (@okayroutt) February 23, 2019

Spread

In the following days, the @OkayRoutt's emoji gained significant spread on twitter and has been used for various redraws. For example, a February 24th, 2019, redraw by Twitter user @moopdrea received over 80 likes.^[3] On February 26th, 2019, Twitter user @PAMVILLO named the emoji "Powercry," with the name being used to refer to this type of emoji in the following months (tweet shown below).^[4]

I've seen this "supersad" & "powercry" emote that I think it originated on okayroutt</a> &#39;s server.<br>emote art by <a href="https://twitter.com/itsdoggybag?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">itsdoggybag pic.twitter.com/xSDnIkstRX

— SuperWiiBros08 (@PAMVLLO) February 26, 2019

On July 18th, Twitter user @blueaurorius tweeted a collection of "cursed expressions" (shown below) featuring a Powercry variation.^[5] The set was assembled with purposes of using the emojis for reference when ordering artistic commissions and was reposted and used by artists on Twitter, Tumblr and DeviantArt in the following days.^[6][7]

In the following months, Powercry, together with other emojis of the "cursed" set, received a significant spread in memes online, primarily on Twitter and Instagram.

Starting on October 8th, 2019, Twitter user @Pencil_Peach tweeted a series of fan art based on the emojis, with the first fan art image of Stressed Emoji and Powercry receiving over 9,800 retweets and 40,000 likes (shown below).^[8]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References