Fire, Hearts, and Tears: What 90,000 Emoji Reactions Reveal About How the World Talks to AI Companions
We analyzed 92,738 emoji reactions sent to AI companions in 60+ countries. Americans send hearts, Europeans send fire, and Japan cries the most.
Millions of people now chat with AI companions every day. And just like in human conversations, they react with emoji: a quick 🔥 for a message they love, a ❤️ for a sweet moment, a 😢 when the story turns sad.
We looked at 92,738 emoji reactions sent by real users on Lovescape over 90 days (May 11 to August 10, 2026), across more than 60 countries. AI characters and test accounts were excluded. The patterns surprised us.
The global scoreboard
Worldwide, 🔥 is the undisputed champion:
| Reaction | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 🔥 Fire | 43,543 | 47.0% |
| ❤️ Heart | 34,955 | 37.7% |
| 👍 Thumbs up | 4,501 | 4.9% |
| 👎 Thumbs down | 3,552 | 3.8% |
| 😂 Joy | 3,141 | 3.4% |
| 😢 Cry | 1,954 | 2.1% |
| 😡 Angry | 1,092 | 1.2% |
Nearly half of all reactions are fire. But the global number hides big differences between countries.
Finding 1: Americans love, Europeans burn
The United States is the only major country where ❤️ beats 🔥:
| Country | 🔥 Fire | ❤️ Heart | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸 United States | 8,435 | 10,541 | ❤️ Heart |
| 🇩🇪 Germany | 9,730 | 4,938 | 🔥 Fire (2:1) |
| 🇫🇷 France | 3,955 | 1,410 | 🔥 Fire (2.8:1) |
| 🇨🇭 Switzerland | 2,681 | 1,498 | 🔥 Fire (1.8:1) |
| 🇨🇦 Canada | 2,664 | 2,192 | 🔥 Fire (close race) |
Germans send twice as much fire as hearts. The French are even more extreme, at almost three fires for every heart. Canadians are the most balanced: fire wins, but only just.
Finding 2: Japan cries
In most countries, 😢 is a rare reaction, near the bottom of the list. Japan is different. Japanese users sent 829 cry reactions in 90 days, making it their third most-used reaction. No other country comes close.
One possible reading is that this reflects different norms around emotional expression, with sadness being a more accepted reaction to share. But our data only shows the pattern, not the reason. What is clear is that Japanese users engage with emotional story moments in a way that stands out globally.
Finding 3: People are overwhelmingly positive with their AI companions
Positive reactions (🔥 ❤️ 👍 😂) outnumber negative ones (👎 😡) by roughly 18 to 1:
- Positive: 86,140 reactions
- Negative: 4,644 reactions
Whatever people are looking for in AI companionship, they seem to be finding it.
Finding 4: Reactions are booming
Weekly reaction volume roughly tripled over the period, from about 3,100 per week in mid-May to about 11,500 per week in late July. People are not just chatting with AI companions more. They are becoming more expressive with them.
Methodology
This study is based on 92,738 emoji reactions sent by users on Lovescape between May 11 and August 10, 2026, across more than 60 countries. All data is aggregated and anonymized. No individual conversations were read or quoted. AI characters and internal test accounts were excluded from all counts. Reaction counts by country come from a single query per metric; small variations (under 1%) between query runs can occur due to data bucketing.
Lovescape is an AI companion platform with approximately 12.9 million monthly active users.
Press inquiries and full dataset requests: social@lovescape.com
