Pile Of Poo Emoji

A smiling, coiled pile of brown poop with friendly eyes. In the West, it's the sarcasm emoji: "Well, that went to 💩" or "This meeting is 💩." In Japan, it's a good luck charm. Seriously.

The disconnect comes down to a pun. The Japanese word for poop is "unko" (うんこ), and the first syllable "un" (運) means luck or fortune. So "kin no unko" (金のうんこ, golden poop) sounds like "golden luck." This wordplay turned poop into a souvenir industry: by 2006, 2.7 million golden poop keychains had been sold across Japan. The emoji smiles because in its home country, it's wishing you good fortune.

That cultural context evaporated when the emoji crossed the Pacific. Adobe's 2022 survey of 5,000 Americans found 💩 was the least favorite emoji across multiple generations, topping the "most disliked" list in 35 states. Americans see a smiling pile of crap. Japanese people see a smiling good luck charm. Same pixels, different planets.

💩 lives in two worlds. In casual texting, it's the go-to for expressing that something is bad, worthless, or frustrating without being vulgar. "The weather is 💩" is PG-rated commentary. "That movie was 💩" is a review in one character. The smile on the emoji's face adds a layer of absurdity: things are bad, but you're grinning about it.

The emoji also powers a specific comedy format: send 💩 with zero context. The recipient has to decide if you're calling them something, describing your day, or literally reporting from the bathroom. The ambiguity is the joke.

On social media, 💩 appears in comment sections as the universal dislike button for people who don't want to write actual criticism. It's lower-effort than 👎 and funnier than 😐. Brands occasionally use it for self-deprecating marketing ("When your Monday is 💩, we've got coffee"), though Adobe's data shows that sending 💩 makes you "less likable" in the eyes of most survey respondents.

In Japan, it's an entirely different story. 💩 is used affectionately, as a lucky symbol, and even as the theme for an entire museum. The Unko Museum in Tokyo has attracted 1.6 million visitors since opening in 2019, with attractions including a poop volcano and a concept called "Max Unko Kawaii" (maximum poop cuteness).

💩's story starts in a manga.

In 1980, Akira Toriyama (the creator of Dragon Ball) began serializing Dr. Slump in Weekly Shonen Jump. The manga featured a recurring character: a sentient, anthropomorphized pile of poop with eyes and a smile, walking around like a person. The protagonist, a robot girl named Arale, was obsessed with poking poop with sticks because, as a robot, she couldn't poop herself. Dr. Slump ran until 1984 and was read by millions. It normalized cute poop in Japanese pop culture a decade before the emoji existed.

Meanwhile, the Japanese language was doing its own work. The word for poop, "unko" (うんこ), starts with "un" (運), which means luck or fortune. This linguistic coincidence gave birth to "kin no unko" (金のうんこ, golden poop), a good luck charm created by a Kyoto company called Ryukodo in 1999, during Japan's economic recession. The company's president Koji Fujii said the national mood was depressed and people needed something to laugh at. By 2006, 2.7 million golden poop keychains had been sold. They're coated in 24-karat gold.

In 1997, SoftBank (then J-Phone) created one of the first emoji sets for mobile phones, and included a smiling poop among the 90 original characters. The design referenced both Dr. Slump's anthropomorphized poop and the kin no unko lucky charm.

The emoji nearly didn't make it to the West. When Google created emoji for Gmail in 2007 to compete in the Japanese market, the team initially resisted including poop. Takeshi Kishimoto, a Google product manager, had to personally convince the Gmail team that the poop emoji was popular and culturally important in Japan. Google Doodle artists designed the Gmail version, drawing on both existing emoji and Dr. Slump's poop character.

In 2017, someone proposed adding a "Frowning Pile of Poo" variant to Unicode. This triggered one of the fiercest internal debates in Unicode history. Michael Everson, described by the New York Times as "probably the world's leading expert in computer encoding of scripts," called the proposal "damaging to the Unicode standard" and wrote that "organic waste isn't cute." The proposal was rejected. The poop stays happy.

First appeared on SoftBank (then J-Phone) Japanese keyboards in 1997 as part of 90 original emojis on the SkyWalker DP-211SW phone: a coiled swirl in black and white with eyes and a smile. Added to Unicode 6.0 in 2010 as U+1F4A9U+1F4A9 PILE OF POO. Added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015. In 2007, Google created emoji for Gmail in Japan and included a poop emoji after Takeshi Kishimoto, a Google product manager, convinced the team of its cultural importance. Google's design drew inspiration from the Dr. Slump manga character "Poop-Boy."

1. 1980Akira Toriyama introduces a sentient poop character in the manga Dr. Slump, normalizing cute poop in Japanese pop culture
2. 1997SoftBank (J-Phone) includes a smiling poop in its 90 original emoji on the SkyWalker DP-211SW phone↗
3. 1999Ryukodo creates kin no unko (golden poop) good luck charms in Kyoto during Japan's economic recession↗
4. 20062.7 million golden poop keychains have been sold in Japan
5. 2007Google adds poop emoji to Gmail after Takeshi Kishimoto convinces the team of its Japanese cultural importance
6. 2010Unicode 6.0 approves U+1F4A9 PILE OF POO↗
7. 2017Frowning Pile of Poo proposal triggers fierce Unicode debate. Michael Everson calls it 'damaging to the Unicode standard.' Proposal rejected.↗
8. 2019Unko Museum opens in Tokyo, attracting 1.6 million visitors with 'Max Unko Kawaii' concept↗
9. 2022Adobe survey finds 💩 is America's least favorite emoji, topping the 'most disliked' list in 35 states

The gap between how Japan and the West see 💩 is probably the largest cultural split for any emoji on the keyboard.

In Japan, poop is lucky. The linguistic pun (unko → un → luck) turned feces into a fortune symbol. Japanese tourists buy golden poop souvenirs. Children play with poop-themed toys. An entire museum in Tokyo is dedicated to making poop cute, and 1.6 million people have visited. The emoji's smile isn't ironic. It's wishing you well.

In the United States and Europe, 💩 means the opposite. It signifies worthlessness, bad quality, or frustration. Calling something "💩" is an insult. Adobe's 2022 survey found it was America's least favorite emoji. The smile on its face reads as sarcasm in Western contexts: things are bad, and the poop is mocking you about it.

There's a third reading in Gen Z texting where 💩 is pure absurdism. It doesn't mean bad or good. It means "I sent you a poop emoji and now you have to deal with that information." The lack of meaning is the meaning.

• •Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball creator) made anthropomorphized poop a recurring character in Dr. Slump starting in 1980, more than 15 years before the first poop emoji existed.
• •The Unko Museum in Tokyo has attracted 1.6 million visitors since 2019. Its concept is "Max Unko Kawaii" (maximum poop cuteness). Exhibits include a poop volcano, a poop waterfall, and interactive installations where visitors shout "UNKO!" in unison.
• •Kin no unko (golden poop) charms are coated in 24-karat gold and sold as good luck talismans. The pun works because "unko" (poop) contains "un" (luck). 2.7 million had been sold by 2006.
• •Michael Everson, described by the NYT as "probably the world's leading expert in computer encoding of scripts," wrote that the frowning poo emoji proposal was "damaging to the Unicode standard" and that it "beggars belief" it was even considered.
• •When Google added emoji to Gmail in 2007, the poop emoji was nearly excluded. Takeshi Kishimoto, a Google product manager, had to personally lobby the team, arguing the emoji was culturally essential in Japan.
• •💩's coiled shape is identical to soft-serve ice cream by design. SoftBank's 1997 original used a spiral that resembles both. The "is it poop or ice cream?" confusion has been a running internet joke since the emoji went global.
• •Japan's Unko Drill workbook series (うんこドリル) by Yusaku Furuya teaches kanji through 3,018 sentences that all contain the word for poop. It sold 280,000 copies in its first week in 2017 and passed 5 million by 2020, holding the top six spots on Amazon Japan's Japanese-learning chart simultaneously.
• •A 2015 SwiftKey report found 💩 was disproportionately popular in Canada, a country that otherwise over-indexed on sports and money emojis. No one has fully explained why Canadians send more poop than anyone else.
• •In the Gitmoji convention, a commit prefixed with 💩 means 'bad code that needs to be improved.' It's one of the few Gitmoji markers developers use unironically, and it's the only public-facing way to label your own code as broken without filing a bug.

• •The biggest misinterpretation is cultural. In Japan, 💩 means good luck (the un/luck wordplay). In the West, it means something is bad. Sending 💩 to a Japanese contact as an insult might be received as a blessing.
• •Some people think the smile means sarcasm in all contexts. It doesn't. In Japan, the smile is sincere (it's a friendly poop wishing you luck). In the West, the smile IS sarcastic, but that's a cultural overlay, not the original intent.
• •💩 and 🍦 are regularly confused at small sizes because they share the same coiled spiral shape. This is by design, not an accident: the original SoftBank emoji deliberately mimicked soft-serve ice cream.

• •Dr. Slump (1980-1984) by Akira Toriyama featured a recurring sentient poop character that walked, talked, and had personality. The manga was read by millions in Japan and directly influenced the emoji's design. Toriyama went on to create Dragon Ball.
• •The Emoji Movie (2017) included a character named Poop Daddy, voiced by Patrick Stewart. The film was critically panned (6% on Rotten Tomatoes) but earned $217M worldwide. Stewart performing a dignified poop voice became its own meme.
• •The Unicode Consortium's internal "Frowning Pile of Poo" debate of 2017 was covered by BuzzFeed News, Vice, and Gizmodo, making a Unicode typography dispute into international news.

• •💩 is U+1F4A9U+1F4A9. Part of the Smileys & Emotion category, face-costume subcategory. Common shortcodes: :poop::poop: or :hankey::hankey: (GitHub, Slack, Discord).
• •The Gitmoji convention uses 💩 to indicate code that needs improvement: git commit -m '💩 needs refactoring'git commit -m '💩 needs refactoring'. It's one of the most used Gitmoji markers.
• •When building emoji pickers, 💩 is typically one of the most-selected emojis by frequency. Consider placing it in the 'frequently used' section even if your analytics haven't run long enough to detect it.

See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.