Tongue Emoji

A tongue sticking out of an open mouth, without a face attached. 👅 is the body-part emoji that demonstrates the "face removal effect" most clearly: the same gesture (tongue out) reads completely differently on a face (😛 = playful) vs. in isolation (👅 = provocative).

Approved in Unicode 6.0 (2010). A face emoji like 😛 or 😜 frames the tongue as silly because the face provides context. 👅 has no such framing. It's a body part alone, which pushes perception toward the suggestive. In sexting vocabulary, 👅 sits alongside 🍆, 🍑, and 💦 as part of the core suggestive emoji set.

But 👅 has a parallel life in food content (taste-testing, flavor reactions, mukbang), body language (teasing, defiance), and music culture. The Rolling Stones tongue logo, Einstein's 1951 birthday photo, Gene Simmons' trademark tongue, and Miley Cyrus's 2013 VMAs have all cemented the tongue as a symbol of rebellion, sensuality, and irreverence.

👅 splits into two worlds that rarely overlap. In DMs and dating contexts, it's one of the most suggestive body-part emojis available. Paired with 💦, it implies oral sex. Paired with 🍆 or 🍑, it's explicitly sexual. This reading is so dominant that multiple parenting guides flag 👅 as an emoji parents should be aware of in their kids' texts.

In food content, 👅 is about tasting and craving: "This flavor 👅" or "Taste test 👅." The ASMR and mukbang community on TikTok uses 👅 in captions for eating content where close-up mouth sounds are the point.

In music contexts, 👅 is the Rolling Stones. The band's tongue and lips logo (designed by John Pasche in 1970 for £50) is one of the most reproduced images in rock history. When someone sends 👅🎸, they're channeling that energy.

👅 is part of Unicode 6.0 (2010), one of the original body-part emoji. Japanese mobile carriers included tongue emoji in their early character sets, though typically as part of face expressions rather than isolated. The decision to include a standalone tongue, separate from the face-with-tongue emoji (😛), created one of the most suggestive body-part emoji in the standard.

The design choice to show only a tongue without a face removes all contextual innocence that faces provide. 😛, 😜, and 😝 are playful because the face frames the tongue as silly. 👅 has no such framing. It's a body part in isolation, which is inherently more provocative.

But the tongue as a cultural symbol goes back millennia. In Hindu iconography, Kali's extended tongue symbolizes divine power. Mick Jagger showed an illustration of Kali to John Pasche when commissioning the Rolling Stones logo, creating a direct line from sacred Indian art to rock and roll to emoji culture. The Māori haka uses the protruding tongue as a warrior's challenge. In Tibet, it's a respectful greeting. And in the West, Einstein, Gene Simmons, and Miley Cyrus have made the extended tongue a symbol of rebellion and irreverence. 👅 inherits all of these layers.

Approved in Unicode 6.0 (2010) as U+1F445U+1F445 TONGUE. Added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015. One of the original body-part emoji. Japanese mobile carriers included tongue emoji in their early sets, typically as part of face expressions, but the decision to include a standalone tongue, separate from face-with-tongue emoji, created one of the most suggestive body-part codepoints in the standard.

• •👅 is one of the few emoji where removing the face from the expression completely changes the meaning. 😛 (face + tongue) = playful. 👅 (tongue alone) = suggestive. The face provides context and innocence. Removing it removes both.
• •The Rolling Stones tongue logo (1971) was designed by 21-year-old art student John Pasche for just £50 (about £700 today). He sold the copyright in 1984 for £26,000. The V&A Museum bought the original artwork in 2008 for £51,000.
• •The Rolling Stones logo was inspired by Kali. Mick Jagger showed Pasche an illustration of the Hindu goddess Kali with her tongue extended, symbolizing divine power and the consumption of evil. A direct line from sacred Indian art to the most famous tongue in rock history.
• •Einstein's 1951 tongue photo was taken by Arthur Sasse on Einstein's 72nd birthday. Einstein stuck his tongue out to ruin the shot. He liked it so much he requested nine copies and sent them as personal greeting cards. A signed print sold for $125,000 at auction in 2017.
• •Miley Cyrus insured her tongue with Lloyd's of London for $1.4 million after her 2013 VMAs performance made it her signature gesture. She told Barbara Walters the real reason: "I get embarrassed to take pictures."
• •Gene Simmons of KISS made the extended tongue a theatrical trademark. His tongue is reportedly over 7 inches long. He attempted to trademark "Gene Simmons Tongue" among 182 other trademark applications throughout his career.
• •In Tibet, sticking out your tongue is a respectful greeting. The practice supposedly originated from people proving they weren't the reincarnation of a feared king known for having a black tongue.
• •The Japanese akanbe gesture (pulling down lower eyelid + tongue out) is a children's taunting expression. It means roughly "nyah nyah" or "I don't care about you" and appears in anime and manga as a stock mocking pose.
• •👅 is part of the core sexting emoji vocabulary alongside 🍆, 🍑, and 💦. Multiple parenting guides flag it as an emoji to be aware of in children's texts.

• •The Rolling Stones tongue and lips logo (1970), designed by John Pasche and inspired by the Hindu goddess Kali, is one of the most recognizable logos in music history. Its journey from a £50 student commission to a V&A Museum acquisition mirrors how a simple body part became a cultural icon.
• •Gene Simmons of KISS made the extended tongue a theatrical trademark in the 1970s. His reportedly 7-inch tongue became one of rock's most recognizable physical features, and he attempted to trademark it.
• •Einstein's 1951 birthday photo by Arthur Sasse became one of the most reproduced photographs of the 20th century. The physicist requested nine copies and used them as greeting cards.
• •Miley Cyrus's 2013 VMAs performance made the tongue her signature. She told Barbara Walters the real reason: "I get embarrassed to take pictures." Lloyd's insured the tongue for $1.4 million.

• •👅 is U+1F445U+1F445. Unicode name: TONGUE. Common shortcodes: :tongue::tongue: (Slack, Discord, GitHub).
• •No skin tone variants. The tongue renders in pink/red across all major platforms.
• •Categorized under People & Body > body-parts. One of the original Unicode 6.0 body-part emoji.

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