JSFiddle - React, Tailwind, and code Playground
HTML
<i class="em em-grinning"/>
CSS
.em {
display: inline-block;
height: 1em;
width: 1em;
overflow: hidden;
line-height: 18px;
font-size: 22px;
vertical-align: middle;
margin-top: -4px;
color: transparent !important;
background: url(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/needim/wdt-emoji-bundle/master/sheets/sheet_messenger_64_indexed_128.png);
background-size: 4100%;
}
.em .em-grinning {
background-position: 65% 37.5%
}
.em.em-grin {
background-position: 65% 40%
}