# Poop emoji

Pile of Poo (💩), also known informally as the poomoji (slang), poop emoji (American English), or poo emoji (British English), is an emoji resembling a coiled pile of feces, usually adorned with cartoon eyes and a large smile. Originating from Japan, it is used as an expression in various contexts. Some possible uses include as a response of passive aggressive emotion; for comedic value; as commentary on what's bad; or as its literal meaning. Poop emoji was added to Unicode in Unicode 6.0 in 2010 and to Unicode's official emoji documentation in 2015.
In Japan, a pile of poop is a symbol of good luck and was regarded as one of the most useful emoji by Google's Japanese product manager. The icon appeared as a character in the 2017 animated comedy film The Emoji Movie, in which it was voiced by Patrick Stewart. It has also surfaced and been used by a variety of sources, including X's auto-reply message into a statue raised from the US Capitol in Washington, DC.

## History

The first emoji appeared after being sold by J-Phone and released in 1997. It features a black-and-white poop emoji with a smile and steam lines for comic effect. J-Phone later subsequently became Vodafone Japan and is now known as SoftBank Mobile. In 2007, Google had decided to include the poop emoji into the Gmail emoji package when it became a significant component of Japanese digital communication. The United States then absorbed that facet of Japanese culture. They are also looking to expand its presence in Japan and Asia as a whole, partnered with au by KDDI to develop emoji for Gmail, a project codenamed "Mojo". Gmail's design for the poop emoji lacked a face and was circled above by animated flies. When deciding which emoji to include, Takeshi Kishimoto, Google's Japanese product manager, went directly to the manager of Gmail and convinced him that the poop emoji was the "most useful" emoji. This was corroborated by a statistical analysis undertaken by Google to determine which emojis were the most popular among Japanese users. According to Google software engineer Darren Lewis, the poop emoji was "way up there" in terms of popularity. Design for the emoji was left to Google Doodle artists Ryan Germick and Susie Sahim, who sought to put a "Google spin" on the existing emojis. They drew inspiration from the existing emoji designs as well as the character Poop-Boy from the Dr. Slump manga by Akira Toriyama. They limited themselves to a size of 15×15 pixels and colors used only in Google's logo. The first popular emoji set was created by Shigetaka Kurita, an employee of Japanese telecom company NTT DoCoMo. Poop emoji was added to Unicode in Unicode 6.0 in 2010 and to Unicode's official emoji documentation in 2015. The emoji is in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs Unicode block: U+1F4A9 💩 PILE OF POO.
Every emoji, including "poo," is rendered differently by Apple, Android, and other platforms. Around Android's poop, there are insects and wavy lines that imply a foul odour. Apple's poop mound is grinning and has big eyes. X's poop emoji has also been designed with eyes. In Japan, a pile of poop, specifically Kin no unko, is a symbol of good luck, as the name is a pun meaning "golden poo" and "good luck" in Japanese. In 2017, a "frowning pile of poo" emoji was shortlisted for inclusion in a future Unicode release. After negative feedback on this character from WG2 experts including Michael Everson and Andrew West, the frowning pile of poo emoji was removed from the list of emoji candidates. In 2024, Google stated that it will develop an app that will be able to create "fart noise" using the poo emoji in Android messaging.

## Appeareances

The poop emoji features in the film and application software. It appears as a character named "Poop Daddy" in 2017 American animated comedy film The Emoji Movie, voiced by Patrick Stewart. Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo from an American animated sitcom South Park has been often referred to as the original poop emoji. A poop emoji appears in a singing karaoke called app Animoji, including in "Poop Troop". Additionally, it also appears in an app that was created by WaterAid called "Give a sh*t", where users may create their own poop emojis with a variety of colours and accessories.

## Popularity

Character information :
| Preview | 💩 | 💩 |
| Unicode name | PILE OF POO | 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 | &#128169; | &#x1F4A9; |
| Shift JIS (au by KDDI) | 246 206 | F6 CE |
| Shift JIS (SoftBank 3G) | 249 155 | F9 9B |
| 7-bit JIS (au by KDDI) | 118 80 | 76 50 |
| Emoji shortcode | :poop: | :poop: |
| Google name (pre-Unicode) | POOP | POOP |
| CLDR text-to-speech name | pile of poo | pile of poo |
| Google substitute string | | |
The poop emoji has received mixed reviews. As of 2015, it was the most popular emoji among Canadians. However, across all generations in 2022, a poop emoji has been considered the least preferred emoji to use. Brenden Gallagher of Complex ranked the smiling poop emoji as one of the best "emoji power", writing that the smiling poop emoji is amazing since it is based on a contradiction. Wired's Jon Mooallem considered publicizing his mother's use of the dancing poop emoji on social media, while ABC News's Samantha Selinger-Morris states in her 2016 article that the smiling poop emoji is "one of the most popular emojis in existence" due to its "ineffable charm" and "ability to transcend language barriers and political differences". As such, it has been featured on Mylar birthday balloons and cupcakes.
A poo emoji was used in the 2018 case of Emerson v. Dart following the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit's ruling in which Paula Emerson, a prison officer, sued the county on grounds of workplace discrimination and posted in an employee Facebook page. Facebook's internal documents have also revealed that has been occasionally considered as hate speech. In 2023, Elon Musk set X to auto-reply to press emails with a poop emoji. Musk responded with the same graphic after X's former CEO, Parag Agrawal, gave him a thorough explanation of why it would be challenging to gauge the extent of bot usage on the network. Musk responded with a comment, saying, "💩 = BS", after X referenced the response in its lawsuit to compel him to finish buying the site. The auto-reply message was later replaced with a new message. A bronze installation that shows the pile of poop on Nancy Pelosi's desk was also temporarily placed across from the US Capitol in Washington, DC to "honor" the individuals responsible for the January 6 United States Capitol attack.
Merchandise featuring a poop emoji includes a shirt, dress, rafts, and a toilet plunger has been made.