Emoji t-shirts have a slightly awkward problem. The face on the shirt doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone who sees it.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota asked hundreds of people to rate popular emoji, and found they disagreed on whether the same face was positive, neutral or negative 25% of the time.

That was with everyone looking at the identical image. Across different phones, the disagreement got worse.

So when you pick an emoji shirt, you’re picking a message.

Below is what each of our 14 faces actually says, which ones make safe gifts and which ones are inside jokes, and how to turn a handful of them into the easiest group costume you’ll ever organise.

Why the Same Face Means Different Things

An emoji has an official name, but nobody reads the name. They read the face, and they read it through their own age, their own phone and their own group chats.

The Loudly Crying Face is the clearest example. It was built for sobbing, but Emojipedia notes it’s often used in an exaggerated, humorous way, including for laughing so hard you cry.

Send it to a 19-year-old, and they’ll read “I’m dying”. Send it to your nan, and she’ll ring to check you’re okay.

The grimacing face has the opposite problem. It means tension, awkwardness or “oops”, but its toothy mouth can look like a big happy grin from a distance.

You’d think that’s a reason to avoid emoji shirts. It’s the reason they work.

On a shirt, the wearer supplies the context. The face says one thing, and the person inside it decides which thing.

A slogan tee spells its joke out and can only be read one way. An emoji tee lets the room fill in the gap, which is why the right face on the right person gets a bigger laugh than any slogan.

Which Face Says What: All 14 Shirts Decoded

Every shirt below is printed on black, which makes the yellow faces pop from across a room. Most are $29.95, and a few are cheaper.

The Laughers: 🤣 and 😭

The Rolling on the Floor Laughing face is the least ambiguous shirt we make. It’s tilted and crying with laughter, and there’s no second way to read it. There’s also a second version with different artwork on a lighter 180gsm tee at $34.95.

The Crying face is the one that splits generations. Under 30, it’s a laughing shirt. Over 50, it might be a sad one. That’s half the fun.

The Lovers: 😍, 🥰 and 🤩

Big Heart Eyes is pure, uncomplicated “obsessed”. Smiling Face with Hearts ($27.95) is softer, more “aww” than “wow”, which makes it the better partner gift.

Star Struck ($27.95) is the fan face: starry eyes, open-mouth grin. It’s also the only design in the range that comes in kids’ sizes, from 8 to 16.

The Awkward Ones: 😬 and 😳

The Nervous face is the grimace. Clenched teeth, the face you pull when you’ve hit reply-all.

The Embarrassed face is the flushed one: wide eyes, red cheeks. Emojipedia lists embarrassment first, but also flattery, surprise and disbelief, so it suits anyone who goes red at the slightest thing.

The Attitude: 🙄, 🤔 and 😈

The Eyes Roll shirt is irritation, boredom and “yeah, whatever” in one face. Wearing it is a statement. Giving it is a diagnosis.

The Thinking face is the hand-on-chin “hmm”, worn by someone who isn’t convinced yet.

The Evil face is the purple little devil. It’s less evil than cheeky: Emojipedia puts it down to mischief and naughtiness, not actual villainy.

The Cool Ones: Dab, Earphones and Cool Boy

The Dab ($27.95) is a sunglasses-wearing face mid-dab. Our own product page admits the dab is old, which is exactly why it’s funny on a dad.

Earphones ($25.95) is the music lover lost in their own playlist. I Am a Cool Boy ($24.95) is the only one with words on it, and the cheapest in the range.

Safe Gift or Inside Joke? Check How Popular the Face Is

The Unicode Consortium, which runs the emoji standard, has published how often each one is used. Its 2019 ranking makes a surprisingly good gift guide.

The faces near the top are everywhere, so nearly everyone reads them the same way. Heart Eyes ranks 3rd, Rolling on the Floor Laughing 4th and Loudly Crying 8th. Thinking (20th) and Eyes Roll (22nd) are close behind.

Further down, the faces get more specific. Star Struck sits 50th, Flushed 80th, Grimacing 86th and the little devil 94th.

That gives you one rule. Faces in the top 25 are safe gifts for anyone. Past that, they turn into inside jokes, and the further down the list a face sits, the more it only lands on the person it’s about.

One warning goes with it: don’t give a rare face to someone who might take it at face value. The Nervous shirt is hilarious for the mate who’s famously always running late. Given to an anxious colleague, it just reads as a comment.

Who to Give Each One To

If you’re buying for someone else, start with the person, not the shirt.

• Your partner: Smiling Face with Hearts. Heart Eyes if you’re past the shy stage.
• The teenager in your life: Eyes Roll. They’ll pretend to hate it and wear it constantly.
• The quiz-night captain or chronic overthinker: Thinking.
• The friend who goes red when anyone says their name: Embarrassed.
• The office instigator: the little devil.
• Dad: the Dab. The more out of date the move, the better the joke.
• A young fan, aged 8 to 16: Star Struck, in kids’ sizes.
• Anyone you don’t know well: Rolling on the Floor Laughing. It’s the one face nobody misreads.

They also fit neatly under a $30 Kris Kringle cap, with every shirt except the $34.95 version coming in at $29.95 or less. If the work Christmas party is the real occasion, our tuxedo t-shirts do a similar job.

Group Emoji Costumes: One Face Each, No Sewing

This is where the decoding pays off. A group of friends, each in a different face, is a costume that’s instantly readable and takes no effort past picking who’s who.

The fun part is the picking. Put it to the group chat and let everyone assign each other a face. Nobody gets to choose their own.

Take a group of five: the overthinker in Thinking, the sibling in Eyes Roll, the always-late one in Nervous, the hopeless romantic in Heart Eyes and the instigator in the little devil. At $29.95 each, that’s $149.75 for the group, about thirty dollars a head.

The office version works the same way, with one change: let people pick their own face. Assigning a colleague the Nervous shirt is a joke between friends and a performance review between co-workers. Let the team choose, and someone will always volunteer for the little devil.

It works for Halloween, emoji-themed birthdays, school dress-up days and fun runs. For a Halloween group, our movie t-shirt costume guide has more shirt-only ideas.

A few things to get right:

• Settle who’s who before anyone orders. Two people turning up as Heart Eyes ruins the bit.
• Add names if it’s a big group. Our customiser lets you set the shirt to black, search for the emoji design and add a name underneath.
• Remember the kids. Only Star Struck comes in kids’ sizes, so build a family group around that face for the little ones.

Sizing, Colour and When to Order

Every emoji shirt comes on black, and most run from XS to 5XL. To pick a size, lay a favourite tee flat and measure straight across under the arms. Our sizes run from 47cm across the chest for an XS to 68cm for a 5XL.

The shirts are 190gsm combed cotton, printed on demand in our Australian factory. Each one is printed after you order, and dispatches within five working days.

That means the event date sets the deadline. For a group costume, order at least two weeks before the night, so there’s room for the post and for the one friend who forgets to send their size.

Pick the person first, then pick the face.