It was hard to write this Strands guide without giving it away a little in the headline. When the theme is “✨🔥🌹💀🤩👀💐”, it’s hard to believe people have any other method of seeking help than writing “emoji”.

Once again, there is no hidden meaning to the theme of today's NYT Strands. At first I thought it might be a reference to a song or a movie, but then I realized that the number of emojis in the theme matched the number of non-Spangram words that were part of the solution. That's when I found the Spangram as the first word.

There’s no way we’re going to spoil the fact that today’s Spangram is all about EMOJIS, ranging from the “E” in the fourth row of the left column to the “S” in the fifth row of the right column. I know you probably wanted more of a clue at first, but there’s no point in beating around the bush this time. Now you know your goal is to figure out the name of each of the seven emojis (or emoji? Merriam-Webster says both plurals are correct) in the theme.

I found five of them very easily, but had a hard time finding the right name for the other two. Yes, I'm talking about the sparkly thing and the face with stars for eyes. The answers to their names are below.