U+1F605 · emoji since 2010
The sweat smile is relief and awkwardness sharing one face. It's the close call laugh, the oops I forgot laugh, and the this is fine when it's slightly not laugh.
It softens admissions and survives embarrassments: barely made the train, sent the text to the wrong chat, said see you later to the waiter. 😅 understands.
In texting, 😅 does not carry a widely used hidden or slang meaning, so you can usually take it at face value. People send it just as it looks, to add a little visual touch or set the mood of a message. Only a handful of emoji have a separate texting code, and 😅 is not really one of them.
Its official Unicode name is the Grinning Face with Sweat emoji. In everyday chat most people just call it the grinning face with sweat emoji or describe what it shows. Copy and paste it from the button at the top of this page.
The 😅 leads off a short phrase, and the rest of the words are written in cipher, every letter disguised as another emoji. Tap decipher to reveal the whole line.
Or make your own cipher in the translator.