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The emoji as it appears on Twemoji, which has been used on X, Discord, Roblox and the Nintendo Switch

Pile of Poo (💩), also known as the poop emoji (American English), or poo emoji (British English), is an emoji resembling a coiled pile of feces, which is usually depicted with cartoon eyes and a large smile. The emoji is used to convey humor, irony and disapproval in the west, and often to wish the recipient good luck in Japan.

The poop emoji originated in Japan, where feces had become associated with humor after an anthropomorphized poop featured in Dr. Slump, a popular manga. Created in 1997 by Shigetaka Kurita for phones sold by J-Phone, it became associated with luck when a golden poo good luck charm named Kin no Unko was invented. Google created a version in 2007 in an effort to expand their Asian market, and thereafter it became popular in the west. It became increasingly depicted as cute after an influential design by Apple. In 2010, a poop emoji was added to Unicode in Unicode 6.0 and to Unicode's official emoji documentation in 2015.

Outside of texting, the emoji has been depicted in a several contexts including in merchandise, as décor and as a character in the 2017 animated film The Emoji Movie. As of 2021 the poop emoji was among the top 100 most used emojis, having increased in frequency of use since 2019.

Multiple reasons have been put forth to explain the poop emoji's popularity. Several explanations emphasize the contrast of the disgust and happiness it evokes. Other explanations include a popular fascination with the design's swirl, beliefs that the emoji is charming, being a way people can engage with the act of defecation, and for how its use comments on the nature of modern media consumption.

History

See also: Emoji § History

Origin

A black and white poo smiling with effect
The 1997 poop emoji[1]

The poop emoji originated in Japanese digital communication. Feces had first taken on humorous connotations in broader Japanese popular culture in the early 1980s, after an anthropomorphized poop famously appeared in the manga Dr. Slump, becoming further popularized when the character appeared in the internationally successful series Dragon Ball, prompting the creation of an array of merchandise depicting poop.[2]

An ancestor of the modern poop emoji was seen in 1982, among the Sharp MZ-80K computer's internal set of symbols that could be used as characters.[3] In 1997, the first popular emoji set appeared on phones sold by J-Phone. It was created by Shigetaka Kurita, an employee of the Japanese telecom company NTT DoCoMo,[4][5] and its poop emoji was black-and-white, with a smile and steam lines for comic effect.[1] Other Japanese telecom companies had their own versions of the poop emoji, some with more grotesque designs.[1]

When a company in Kyoto began selling golden poop-shaped good luck charms at the turn of the century, piles of poop became considered lucky in Japan. These products, named Kin no Unko (literally "golden poo"), were a pun based on the word for poo sounding like the word for luck.[4][6] The subject was considered a popular, humorous, positive object for children, without western stigmas attached.[7]

Outside Japan

In 2007, Google, looking to expand its presence in Japan and Asia as a whole, created emoji for Gmail. Including a poop emoji initially met with internal resistance, but it was added after usage data and a direct appeal to the manager of Gmail by Google's Japanese product manager convinced the team of the emoji's importance and popularity in Japanese internet culture. Gmail's poop emoji was designed by Google Doodle artists who sought to put a "Google spin" on the emoji.[7] They drew inspiration from existing emoji designs as well as the character Poop-Boy from the Dr. Slump manga, and constrained themselves to 15×15 pixels and the colors used in the Google logo.[7][8] Their final design was faceless, and included animated flies circling above.[7]

A poop emoji was added to Unicode 6.0 in 2010 and included in Unicode's official emoji documentation in 2015.[9][10] In 2017, a proposal to add a "frowning pile of poo" emoji to Unicode failed after some typographers in the Unicode Consortium argued it was inappropriate.[11] As an alternative, the emoji was considered to become an emoji sequence, which would allow it to gain expressions by combining it with other emojis.[12]

Every emoji is rendered differently by Apple, Android, and other platforms.[13] Apple's representation of a cute poop emoji was influential, and today the poop emoji typically resembles a coiled pile of feces adorned with cartoon eyes and a large smile.[1][4] As of 2014, Android's poop emoji was surrounded by insects and wavy lines to imply a foul odor. Apple and Twitter's poop emojis grinned and had large eyes, with Twitter's emoji featuring a startled expression.[4] Google's poop emoji gained a smiling face the following December.[14]

Uses

A woman smiling and holding a brown balloon with a large, smiling face. It is a triangle with swirly sides.
A poop emoji balloon

The poop emoji is commonly used for humor, as an alternative to slang terms,[13] and to mock or criticize.[15][16] Although some of these usages are contradictory, its meaning is less ambiguous than other emojis.[17] In Japan, the poop emoji is often sent to wish the recipient good luck, and is not used to criticize as is commonly done in western countries.[16]

The poop emoji has also been used extensively outside of texting. Such uses include depictions in jewellery, baked goods and rafts,[18][19] decorating a poop-themed café,[20] and in application software such as a digital avatar,[21] and a customizable item in WaterAid's app component of its global sanitation awareness campaign.[18] The poop emoji also appears as a character named "Poop Daddy", voiced by Patrick Stewart, in the 2017 animated comedy film The Emoji Movie.[22]

Analysis

Some analyses have looked at attitudes towards and the popularity of the poop emoji: A 2014 data scrape of the emojis used in tweets to that date saw the emoji had been posted 7 million, making it the 88th most common emoji.[23] Later, a 2015 report found it was most popular in Canada among users of a proprietary keyboard application[24] and a 2022 survey undertaken by Adobe indicated the emoji was the least liked of that year in the US, a perspective observed across generations.[25] In 2021, Unicode released data on the most frequently used emojis of the year. Of the 1549 ranked, the poop emoji was the 98th most frequently used, having moved up from 227th in 2019.[26][27]

During the 2016 US presidential election, the emoji gained popularity; in this context linguist Pauline Bryant said it allowed adults to express views on social media that would otherwise be censored. That year, ABC News's Samantha Selinger-Morris said many people believed the emoji had an "ineffable charm" and explained its use as originating in an "ability to transcend language barriers and political differences".[18] Several analyses have identified the emoji's appeal as deriving from a contradiction between the disgust and happiness it evokes.[18][28] Conversely, Willa Paskin writing for Slate described the connection to literal feces as "tenuous", and only relevant insofar as it makes the emoji more intriguing.[1] Comparative literature professor Jonathan E. Abel credits some of the interest in the emoji to a cross-cultural fascination with the image's swirl.[2]

Despite writing that the shape contributes to its popularity, Abel finds this insufficient to explain the universality of the emoji's popularity. Instead, he proposes that people use the emoji as a way to engage with the act of defecation, evidencing this with the fact that toilets are frequently where phones are used. Abel takes this fact as an opportunity to engage in social commentary. First, he notes that because phones are frequently used on toilets, some evidence suggests that they are often contaminated with fecal matter and harmful bacteria, permitting "poo on phones" to have a dual meaning of physical feces and the poop emoji. From this, he suggests that the poop emoji may be popular as it signifies media being consumed (phone use on the toilet) at the same time as it signifies the harms of its consumption (seen through the fecal contamination resultant from phone use).[2]

Encoding

Character information
Preview 💩
Unicode name PILE OF POO
Encodings decimal hex
Unicode 128169 U+1F4A9
UTF-8 240 159 146 169 F0 9F 92 A9
UTF-16 55357 56489 D83D DCA9
GB 18030 148 57 218 51 94 39 DA 33
Numeric character reference 💩 💩
Shift JIS (au by KDDI)[29] 246 206 F6 CE
Shift JIS (SoftBank 3G)[29] 249 155 F9 9B
7-bit JIS (au by KDDI)[30] 118 80 76 50
Emoji shortcode[31] :poop:
Google name (pre-Unicode)[32] POOP
CLDR text-to-speech name[33] pile of poo
Google substitute string[32] [ウンチ]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Paskin, Willa (15 April 2020). "Why Did Poop Get Cute?". Slate. Archived from the original on 16 April 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2025.
  2. ^ a b c Abel, Jonathan E (2020). "Not everyone 💩s: Or, the Question of Emoji as 'Universal' Expression". In Giannoulis, Elena; Wilde, Lukas RA (eds.). Emoticons, Kaomoji, and Emoji: The Transformation of Communication in the Digital Age. Routledge Research in Language and Communication. New York and London: Routledge. pp. 31–32, 39–40. ISBN 9780367785215.
  3. ^ Abel, Jonathan E (2020). "Not everyone 💩s: Or, the Question of Emoji as 'Universal' Expression". In Giannoulis, Elena; Wilde, Lukas RA (eds.). Emoticons, Kaomoji, and Emoji: The Transformation of Communication in the Digital Age. Routledge Research in Language and Communication. New York and London: Routledge. pp. 31–32, 39–40. ISBN 9780367785215.
  4. ^ a b c d Sternbergh, Adam (16 November 2014). "Smile, You're Speaking Emoji". New York Magazine. Archived from the original on 26 March 2017. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  5. ^ Alt, Matt (7 December 2015). "Why Japan Got Over Emojis". Slate. Archived from the original on 14 May 2020. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
  6. ^ Gordenker, Alice (20 March 2007). "Japan's gold poop". The Japan Times. Archived from the original on 5 February 2025. Retrieved 16 May 2025.
  7. ^ a b c d Schwartzberg, Lauren (18 November 2014). "The Oral History Of The Poop Emoji (Or, How Google Brought Poop To America)". Fast Company. Archived from the original on 3 April 2018. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  8. ^ Healy, Claire (12 May 2015). "What does the stinky poop emoji really mean?". Dazed. Archived from the original on 12 April 2018. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  9. ^ "Unicode 6.0 Emoji List". Emojipedia. Archived from the original on 7 August 2017. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
  10. ^ "Emoji Data for UTR #51". Unicode. Archived from the original on 22 March 2017. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  11. ^ Donaghey, River (3 November 2017). "Emoji Makers Went to War over a New Frowning Poop Emoji". Vice. Archived from the original on 8 April 2025. Retrieved 2 February 2025.
  12. ^ "Sad poop emoji gets flushed after row". BBC. 6 December 2017. Archived from the original on 13 December 2024. Retrieved 2 February 2025.
  13. ^ a b "💩 Pile of Poo Emoji". Emojipedia. Archived from the original on 2 April 2017. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  14. ^ Harrington, Caitlin (28 July 2017). "Origin of a Feces: A Not-So-Brief History of the Poop Emoji". Wired. Archived from the original on 23 February 2025. Retrieved 16 May 2025.
  15. ^ Cox, Joseph (7 June 2018). "Internal Documents Show How Facebook Decides When a Poop Emoji Is Hate Speech". Vice. Archived from the original on 8 April 2025. Retrieved 2 February 2025.
  16. ^ a b Dürscheid, Christa (February 2021). "Emojis are everywhere. How emojis conquer new contexts" (PDF). In Haralambous, Yannis (ed.). Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century, Part 1. Fluxus Editions. p. 503. doi:10.36824/2020-graf1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 May 2025. Retrieved 13 May 2025.
  17. ^ Jeong, Sarah (6 April 2023). "The poop emoji: a legal history". The Verge. Archived from the original on 10 March 2025. Retrieved 13 May 2025.
  18. ^ a b c d Selinger-Morris, Samantha (9 December 2016). "Why are we so passionate about the smiling poop emoji?". ABC News (Australia). Archived from the original on 30 March 2017. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  19. ^ Plante, Chris (28 June 2016). "Poop emoji rafts belong in every pool". The Verge. Archived from the original on 7 December 2024. Retrieved 1 February 2025.
  20. ^ Brown, Dexter (8 October 2016). "Poop Cafe debuts this weekend, hopes it isn't a stinker with locals". CBC News. Archived from the original on 19 November 2022. Retrieved 29 April 2025.
  21. ^ Handley, Lucy (29 November 2017). "New Apple iPhone X ad features a singing karaoke poop emoji called an 'animoji'". CNBC. Archived from the original on 21 February 2023. Retrieved 13 May 2025.
  22. ^ Giardina, Carolyn (18 January 2017). "Patrick Stewart to Voice Poop Emoji in 'Emoji Movie'". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 28 January 2017. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  23. ^ Chalabi, Mona (5 June 2014). "The 100 Most-Used Emojis". FiveThirtyEight. Archived from the original on 16 December 2018.
  24. ^ O'Neil, Lauren (22 April 2015). "Canadians top the world in smiling poop emoji use, report finds". CBC News. Archived from the original on 6 October 2024. Retrieved 31 January 2025.
  25. ^ Steele, Chandra (15 September 2022). "No 💩:Everybody Hates the Poop Emoji". PCMag. Archived from the original on 9 December 2024. Retrieved 31 January 2025.
  26. ^ Daniel, Jennifer (2021). "The Most Frequently Used Emoji of 2021". Unicode. Archived from the original on 15 May 2025. Retrieved 16 May 2025.
  27. ^ "Emoji Frequency — Public". Google Sheets. 2021. Archived from the original on 17 July 2024. Retrieved 16 May 2025.
  28. ^ Gallagher, Brenden (14 November 2013). "Emoji Power Rankings: The Top 25". Complex. Archived from the original on 29 July 2017. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  29. ^ a b Unicode Consortium. "Emoji Sources". Unicode Character Database. Archived from the original on 28 April 2020. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  30. ^ Scherer, Markus; Davis, Mark; Momoi, Kat; Tong, Darick; Kida, Yasuo; Edberg, Peter. "Emoji Symbols: Background Data—Background data for Proposal for Encoding Emoji Symbols" (PDF). UTC L2/10-132. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 June 2019. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  31. ^ JoyPixels. "Emoji Alpha Codes". Emoji Toolkit. Archived from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  32. ^ a b Android Open Source Project (2009). "GMoji Raw". Skia Emoji. Archived from the original on 3 October 2020. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
  33. ^ Unicode, Inc. "Annotations". Common Locale Data Repository. Archived from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
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