March 18, 2026 • 28 mins
In 2015, Instagram banned the eggplant emoji from their search function in an attempt to shutdown #EggplantFriday. In this classic episode, Anney and Samantha delve into the history of the eggplant emoji's rise to infamous sexting icon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and welcome to Stefan. Never told
your production of iHeartRadio and Yes I am solo today Samantha.
Her voice is not cooperating and that is very important
(00:26):
in an audio medium, so we wish her a speedy recovery.
But in the meantime, we have this classic for you.
This was a fun one. I do think we should
come back and update this one more fully. But it's
about emojis and sexting, and it's been on my mind
because Apple is releasing eight new emojis, I believe, and
(00:51):
it's always a big deal when they do, and there's
a lot of discussion about what gets as an emoji
in what doesn't, and what that says about society and
things like that. It's also been on my mind because
there was an SNL sketch recently about the most popular
(01:15):
and least popular emojis, and I hadn't thought about looking
at the least popular ones, but now I'm really curious.
But also the show Adolescence had a scene in it
that I thought was really interesting where the detective and
(01:36):
his son have a conversation and his son is basically
telling him, you're going about this investigation all wrong because
you don't understand the meaning of emojis. You don't understand
what this is actually communicating, and you're actually embarrassing yourself,
which is true, and it's interesting to me also the
(01:58):
generational difference between how we understand certain emojis. So there
is a lot to unpack with this, and it's always
been a topic that stuck with me. I was lucky
enough to get to speak at Dragon Con a couple
of years ago, and I brought this one up just
because it's one of those things that some of us
(02:22):
don't really put a lot of thought into, but I
find really fascinating and it is a part of our
life of like choosing that emoji, what does it mean?
And why don't they have this one? Anyway, please enjoy
this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and
(02:46):
welcome to STEPH. Mom never told you your protection of
iHeart Radio. So I have a question for you, Samantha.
Oh no, oh, yes, that's right. It's a real gotcha question. Okay,
do you use.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
A lot of emojis?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
You know, I have some favorites, and usually they're the
typical upside down smiley face, because I feel like that's
how I feel right now, uh huh. Or the ones
with the hearts on the face.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Oh yeah, yeah, like the love heart Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
And I also love a good thumbs up.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah that's like, you know, I feel like that definitely
goes a long way.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
But I've really gotten.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Into gifts as it took me three years to finally
figure it out, So more of a gift person.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Yeah, you do you like emojis?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I don't use them that often, but I do think
they're really useful in conversation. I use the thumbs up
a lot, and I used to like suspicious chin strokey
face a lot and.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Then the scared face.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's legit.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So perhaps that is some insights who are psyche.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I'm sure there is some kind of conversation of that
represents for each individual.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Oh I bet that's fascinating.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
I bet it does.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Well.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Okay, here's another question, and it's more personal. Oh no, yes,
have you engaged in a lot of sexting in your life?
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I have not because I can't take it seriously, Like
it just sounds so ridiculous that I am reading something
from my person and it's supposed to be sexy text.
So I don't I don't do you. And I say
this in an understanding. I've already asked, and I know
who I'm asking, but do you.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I have never purposefully done it, but I purposeful. I
definitely have caught myself in a situation where I'm like, oh,
this is sexting, and I.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Don't really know how I ended up there.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It's usually really goofy stuff that I thought was really silly,
but it's clear the other person did not, So never
on purpose.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I have to That's the problem is it was someone
is genuinely trying to sex to me. I just take
it as a joke, and I can't stop making some
kind of an appropriate joke instead of being very like
responsive to exactly what they're trying to do.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Sure, and that's a good segue into our topic today
because we're combining both emojis and sexting, and we're talking
about the eggplant emoji, which I have to say, if
I ever did get I think in the time I'm
thinking of where I was sexting, there was some mushroom
emojis happening, but no eggplant emoji.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
But it was the mushroom.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
It's also a dick.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Oh yeah, I guess in certain situations it is, but
it's kind of goofy, like every time I've encountered it,
if someone sent me an egg plant emoji, I would
automatically think it's funny.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yes, right, So I think I'm too literal for things
like that because in my mind, I'm like, look, because
maybe I have a really bad sense of what eggplants
are in general that I'm like, if your dick looks
like an eggplant, you probably should see somebody like that's
the only thing I.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Can think of.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Well, it is a medical condition, and we will talk
about that more later. So yes, first of all, we
should probably say we are going to tackle this in
a mature way. But you know, if you have kids
that you don't want hearing the history of eggplant, the
eggplant emoji, it's sexting.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Here's your warning.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Here you go. This is it. Stop the podcast.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Now, Yes, after it's already probably too late, we thought
we would do a lighter episode to hopefully give you
some distraction from all of this bad news and frightening
news and anxiety that we're inundated with lately. So this
is inspired by an episode I did over on the
other podcast I do savor about eggplant. Let me tell
(06:53):
you this podcast is all about the history of food
and drink, and having a segment and a food and
drink podcast about a sexting emoji was quite fun and surprising.
So you can go check out that episode if you
want to know more about the food and a little
bit about the sexting. But in this one, we're focusing
on the sexting and emoji part.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Right.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
I don't think we're gonna be talking about the food,
which is delicious, I agree.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Last night it was great.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Yeah, it's great and courage I love it.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Also possibly relevant now during our time of self quarantine,
because you know, I'm guessing there's more sex thing going on,
especially if you're not with your significant other or the
person that you've been talking to so you can't make
physical contacts, so it would make sense sex thing may
be happening. Although we do have a lot of video
chats as well. But who doesn't love a good sext
apparently me me.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I do think it's an art and I really appreciate
when people are good at it. I've witnessed some of
my friends in action, and I always am impressed.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Okay, maybe that's my problem because I don't I don't
know if my friends sexed, because that's not a thing
we necessarily talk about, so I don't know how good.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
They are some information, evanage all.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I guess I would have to start doing a survey
of all my friends soon.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yes, an official survey for the podcast.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Of course, for the podcast.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yes, So, as humans, we have been sexting pretty much forever,
from cave paintings to Carry Your Pigeons, to old school
cameras to the pager to the first text. The words
sex first appeared in Our lexicon in two thousand and four,
and you can see our past sexting episode for more
(08:33):
on the history of sexting.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
So all right, in case you don't know, and if so, wow,
that's impressive. The egg plant emoji or the aubergine emoji,
is a well known Internet shorthand for penises yep, to
the point that in January twenty fifteen, Instagram banned the
egg plant emoji from its search function and Facebook apparently
banned it too, And when Instagram rolled out search capabilities
(08:59):
for emojis, the eggplant was the only emoji not included.
Things that were included the poop emoji, the banana emoji,
the toilet emoji, which, by the way, I've not seen this,
the syringe emoji, and the cleft peach emoji for that ass.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Okay our Regina more on that second.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Oh, okay, okay So Facebook and Instagram spoke people. When
asked about this, band said it was in an effort
to combat the sexual harassment abuse women face online. Pictures
of nude women with their nipples, butts, and originitals covered
by emoji were also banned as a part of this
and okay, dictionary dot com has an epic entry on it.
(09:38):
We're going to have to read it.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
The eggplant emoji is a long purple eggplant, but it's
really just used to represent a penis.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I'm liking the fight that They're very direct about what
is happening in the world. So the eggplant emoji first
debuted in twenty ten and quickly became again a symbol
for the penis your wall. According to Among the New Words,
a quarterly article in the journal American Speech, the egg
plan emoji was used on Twitter to mean penis as
(10:08):
early as twenty eleven, and in March of twenty fourteen,
the video artist Jesse Hill translated Beyonce's head song Drunken
Love into an emoji, using the eggplant to represent jay
Z's penis.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
I still say he needs to go to a doctor.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
The dictionary entry continues, because again this is all from
dictionary dot com quote. Later that year, the emoji inspired
a trend on Instagram and other social media sites called
hashtag eggplant Friday, a hashtag that was linked to post
where men posted explicit images of their quote eggplants. But
in twenty fifteen, Instagram actually blocked the egg plan emoji
(10:45):
in references to it eg hashtag eggplant from its search functionality.
Instagram's band resulted in a campaign called hashtag Free the Eggplant,
modeled after the similar campaign hashtag Free the Nipple in
twenty twelve for gender equality. And underneath this is a
picture of an eggplant with a sad face on it,
captioned when You're a sweet and innocent eggplant, but people
(11:07):
keep using you as an emoji for a.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Dick And yes, I will be posting this on our
social media before the episode releases, so we'll put it
up in the story. So if you want to see
the sad face eggplant, if you haven't already, just tune in.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
It's pretty good.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
It's pretty so good. So yes.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
This band was specifically to combat something called hashtag eggplant Friday.
That was dudes posting outlines of their junk on Friday
and then tagging it with hashtag eggplant Friday. The association
between eggplanet dicks is so semented that rather pivoting the
similar shaped emojis like the banana or a husk of
a corn, people have instead started using eggplant adjacent things
(11:49):
like eggplant barm and Instadium might have shut it down,
but the eggplant emoji is still.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Going strong on Twitter and Tumblr.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Were you aware of eggplant Friday when it was happening, Samantha,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I wasn't.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I still am not aware of it, and I'm very
glad to have missed it.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Oh oh, there's a lot of documentation. I'm good as
a brief sexting primer for those who don't know, like me,
this was all news to me. Eggplant emogi plus mouth
emoji means oral sex, x plan emogi plus peach emoji
means vaginal or anal sex, and egg plant emogi plus
water droplets means ejaculation.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I did know that one.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Okay, the last one is what I've seen the most
of and everything else makes me just sad.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Or you know, I maintain as long as people are
having a good time.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
That's fair. That's fair.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Again, this is why I'm not good at sex thing
because I'm like, what.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Is happening to this full poor peach?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
A you feel sorrow for the beach, for the digital peach.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
I'm just saying so.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Egg plan emoji has even made an appearance in court.
Yes again, but that would be the Daytime show divorce court.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
So in twenty fourteen, while.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Presenting his case that had significant other was cheating, a
man testified, we both have iPhones, we both have emojis. Now,
I feel like certain emojis shouldn't just get sent to anybody.
And I'm referring to the mojis with the hard eyes,
blowing a heart kiss, and even the eggplant that some
people refer to as mel genitalia, in which the judge asked, wait,
(13:21):
I haven't heard about the eggplant. There's an eggplant and
the main responds, uh, yeah, an eggplant emoji, but it's
referred to as a mel genitalia. Uh. In conversations, I
love you had to explain the egg plant emoji to
a judge on camera.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
So good, So good.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
In twenty fifteen, Diplo named the egg plant emoji his
favorite emoji because, quote, it's code for stuff.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
I like that they had to be really obvious about that.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
It's code for stuff. Aren't all emoji's code for stuff?
I guess there's an extra layer.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I guess, I mean to be fair.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I think everybody was really confused by the poop EMOCHI too,
because it was, like I said, ice cream, is that poop?
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Why was it that eyes?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Mm hm. Canada is the biggest user of the poop emoji,
by the.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Way, and we have more facts around that, but first
we have a quick break for word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
And we're back, Thank you sponsor.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
So prior to emoji's, before they were a thing, the
banana was the food most usually associated with the penis
here in the United States, in part because of the
use of a banana in sex egg classes to demonstrate
how to properly put on a condom.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
No one in the US would have.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Thought of the eggplant as a symbol for a penis,
unless in the context of something you really didn't want.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Here's that medical condition egg plant penis.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
So this is a pnile fracture that causes discoloration and swelling.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Sounds painful, don't want it.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Eggplant wasn't a super well known food in the United
States outside of being fried or just covered in parmesan cheese.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I don't know how I feel about the inner changing
this conversation for eggplant.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
So, then in nineteen ninety eight, a telecom company introduced
the emoji keyboard as a marketing tactic targeted towards Japanese
teenagers so that they would buy more pagers.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Well, I will.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Say because it was in my heyday, the pagers and such,
it definitely was the beginning of hookups. You got a
specific text or if you got a specific like icon
or number set, it was like, oh come over.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Really yeah yeah, so interested in this?
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
So it's definitely like a code, like if there's certain
type of numbers it's nine, one, one or whatever. Typically
you know, use it to have them call back, but
they use different things in order or to represent different
things to be like, hey, this is the moment you
need to come over.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
My husband's not here or my wife's not here.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
You know, the cheating level, as well as if you're
a teenager like I was, we would use it to
spell boob somehow.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yeah, that's what they showed in the article the history
of sexing, and I was like, oh my gosh, children.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
I mean, we did that in calculators too, but the
page was even more fun.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
You're right, You're right.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
So these first emojis were mostly tame manga inspired smiley
faces and hand gestures, and then a Minute came up
with them as a way to help shy teenagers clarify
the meaning and emotion behind their texts. I will say
a lot of the times, if I feel like I'm
being too mean or harsh, I use an emoji, which
is interesting. Of the two hundred and eighty two emojis
included in the first release of emojis, there were a
(16:45):
handful of food items, including the banana, but no eggplant.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Other companies got in on the emoji game by offering
up competing sets of different, quote better emojis. Apple got
in on it in two thousand and eight, officially choosing
their favorite set of emojis to be their debut emoji
keyboard for the iPhone. Eggplant was not included. Nope, the
egg plan emogi was born in the United States and
twenty ten thanks to the Unicode Consortium.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Yeah, that sounds like a secret club, Well it kind
of is.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
The Unicode Consortium dictates the computer coding specs of things,
including emojis, so that they work across multiple platforms and devices,
and that includes the egg plan emoji. By twenty eleven,
the unicodes emojis were up and running on the iPhone
and in no time at all, Americans rallied behind the
(17:36):
sexting potential of the egg plant emoji.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Within three years.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
In December twenty fourteen, hashtag eggplant Friday was a movement
on Instagram and within months Instagram shut it down. And
apparently this is a very iPhone specific thing. That's what
a lot of articles I read said. The egg plant
emoji on androids is shorter and plumper. And so I
did a little sleep thing because I have an Android,
(18:02):
and I guess so it still looks pretty phallic to me.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
But and.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
But I like you into with a butt. But we should.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Say it's not just used for sexual situations, but also
in a non threatening way to communicate arousal, sort of
in a joking manner. And again I still hold to
if your penis looks like this eggplant, I'm going to
tell you to go see a damn doctor. And also
stat I don't want an eggplant near me.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I don't need these thoughts you're putting in my head.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
But yeah, I have seen it in a lot of
like you know, if somebody post a sheet pan of
cookies and then I'll see egg plant emoji, like you
know that kind of joking, Oh I'm so turned cookies again.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I'm gonna have to take another survey because my friends
and I don't ever use that in context of like, oh,
I'm so into these cookies.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So type up an official survey, get back to me.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Okay, you know what this is going to go out,
quarantining Live, hashtag quarantine life. Do the survey about penises,
Thank you and.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Egg plant emoji. Your responses are much appreciated.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
Despite this all for education, Okay it is.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
We're just trying to do a service for everybody.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I'm going to specifically send it to my female friends
and be like how many times do you get an
egg plant emoji?
Speaker 4 (19:26):
And if you're talking or flirting?
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Also, listeners, please weigh in on this.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Weigh in on this very important matter.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
I need to know how many of you use the
egg plan emoji and it's all how many of you
get sent egg plant emojis on the regular?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Spenty needs to know. Spenty needs to know.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Despite the food world being packed with phallic items, just packed, somehow,
we haven't applied them to men in the same way
we've applied food items to women. I mean, if you
can think about melonszams, peaches, pineapples, so many things.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Wait, what's the pineapples for? I?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
You know, I would love someone to write in but
I saw this in reference to a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
I have my suspicions, but.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Okay, yeah, someone needs to explain to me what the pineapple,
the peaches even kind of the yams and the melons.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
I get it when you cut it, but huh.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Okay, huh. But why did we settle on the eggplants?
Why didn't Americans in particular latch onto the eggplant as
a euphemism for dix. Well we'll get into that after
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
(20:49):
we're back, Thank you, sponsor.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
So surveys show the eggplant as a sex is particularly
American thing, although Canada UK and Australia are up there too.
There are a couple of theories as to why, and
one of the main ones is here in the US,
we really don't have a lot of familiarity with eggplant,
especially not the longer, thinner Japanese variety as opposed to
the shorter, squadier Italian type.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Oh my god, just saying these words.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Whereas we associate corn with teeth and maybe wholesomeness, do
we I am bananas like America.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
You know, you're in the Midwest and you got the
little corn on the cop things and you're eating it.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Maybe that's just me, maybe that maybe I'm just not
as imaginative. So and bananas with awkward sex edged classes,
which makes sense, and we don't we didn't really have
any cultural ideas attached to eggplants.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Others say that the reason Americans latched onto this is
down to the shape and the color, which isn't exactly correct,
but is more on point than yellow maybe or that's
how the argument goes. And I've also heard arguments about
the eggplant's size. So the banana doesn't suggest the big
now that the thunder wants to suggest.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Because we're all children, we're children.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
There's so many things.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
So in twenty thirteen, it was officially recommended for innu
window purposes by Fred Bennison.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
And this guy would know.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
He edited Emoji Dick, an emoji reimagining of Herman Melville's
classic Oh Dear God.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
That same year, it was mentioned in.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
A slide show by The Complex about what emojis were
best to use for sexting.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
I'm really glad we have guidelines.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, we need those guidelines, But I did find this
slideshow quite like. It starts off with a warning that
you make sure the girl or woman you are sexing
is at least eighteen, which yes, but also.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And it had a lot of like.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
If you're sexting two women at once, how to get
off twice without one of them knowing? And I'm not
opposed to consensual, polyamorous relationships or open relationships. It was
just the vibe of trickery manipulation that turned me off.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
But oh, yeah, that's bad.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, perhaps a conversation for another day. That twenty fourteen
Jesse Hill video played a huge part in proliferating the
eggplant's reputation in This Realm too. Bob was an early
adopter of eggplant Friday.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
That makes sense.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Early in twenty fifteen, a co author of the Unicode
Consortium sent out an email with the subject line sex
Emoji to their public listeners to bring attention to the
whole eggplant situation, and then a study that same year
from match dot com found a correlation between the sending
of emojis and higher rates of sex among its almost
fifty seven hundred single respondents, by margin about twenty percent
(23:36):
for both men and women. Academics believe this might be
because emojis do help clarify emotions and tones of digital interactions. Apparently,
frequent emoji users are also twice as likely to get married.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Oh is that what I've been doing wrong?
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah, it's your emoji lack of emoji use. That's definitely
what it is. Hashtag free the eggplant has so far
been unsuccessful. Eggplant Emoji Vibrator was released in twenty sixteen,
So there is that at least two companies have come
out of this whole thing too, Eggplant in the Mail
and Eggplant Mail, which both send eggplants in the mail
(24:12):
as joke gifts. I have done something similar with potatoes
and it was a huge hit.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
So is a potato sexual too.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
No, well, probably for some people, but it's just that,
like you're opening up a box and you think, oh,
what could this gift be, and it's a potato.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Something you can give single potato.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, okay, yes, yes, So that's kind of the history
of the eggplant emoji. There's some brief other things we
wanted to touch on other emoji news.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
I suppose yes, diverse emojis, I say, and hashtag free
the nipple and missectoy patients and breastfeeding mothers was successful also, however.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, a twenty fifteen study on worldwide emoji use found
that the US used more LGBTQ plus emojis than anywhere else.
We also use more quote female or oriented emoji and
that I think that's the females. Well until recently, no,
because there weren't that many. But speaking of you can
talk about that, Samantha.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
So the introduction of more diverse again in twenty fifteen,
the first modifier codes for changing skin tones where emojis
were introduced.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
And then there was a little bit of mixed reviews
for that.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Then in twenty twenty, another release included things like gender
neutral Santa Claus a man in a wedding dress, women
in tuxedos, and the transgender flag. This after a twenty
nineteen batch came with same sex couples and a twenty
seventeen push for non binary options, and this after a
twenty sixteen push to have less sexist female emojis, because
no joke, the only options for women at first were bride, Princess,
(25:48):
flamenco dancer, and playboy bunny. As compared to all the
male emojis in occupations doing things, the new female emojis
ranged from scientists, welder's code, mechanics, farmers, business people, and chefs.
On top of that, female versions for a lot of
the male emojis were introduced, and there was also a
woman wearing a hit job.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
So the introduction of new emoji is big business. By
the way, big companies pay upwards of an annual eighteen
thousand dollars to vote on them, and you've probably seen
companies petition for them like Taco Bell and Tagos come
to mind. Yeah, and about ninety percent of us use
them and on Facebook Messenger five billion or cent a day.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
So this stuff actually matters.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
It really does, and we should return return to the
world of emoji for a future episode, and did want
to say before we completely close out. We back when
Bridget and I were hosting together, we did an episode
on exhibitionism and why dick pics are a thing. So
if you want a more serious look at why women
(26:57):
receive unsolicited dick pics, which is not don't do it,
you can check out that episode. I would love again
for listeners to write in about their experience with the
eggplant emoji and sexting and if they were around and
remember eggplant Friday.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Is it good that it's shut down? Is it sad?
Just your experiences with it?
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Right? You can send those experiences to our email at
stuff Media, Momstuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can also
find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts or on
Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as always
to our super producer Andrew Howard, Thank you, and thanks
to you for listening Stuff I'm Never Told You the
protection of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out
(27:46):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and welcome to Stefan. Never told
your production of iHeartRadio and Yes I am solo today Samantha.
Her voice is not cooperating and that is very important
(00:26):
in an audio medium, so we wish her a speedy recovery.
But in the meantime, we have this classic for you.
This was a fun one. I do think we should
come back and update this one more fully. But it's
about emojis and sexting, and it's been on my mind
because Apple is releasing eight new emojis, I believe, and
(00:51):
it's always a big deal when they do, and there's
a lot of discussion about what gets as an emoji
in what doesn't, and what that says about society and
things like that. It's also been on my mind because
there was an SNL sketch recently about the most popular
(01:15):
and least popular emojis, and I hadn't thought about looking
at the least popular ones, but now I'm really curious.
But also the show Adolescence had a scene in it
that I thought was really interesting where the detective and
(01:36):
his son have a conversation and his son is basically
telling him, you're going about this investigation all wrong because
you don't understand the meaning of emojis. You don't understand
what this is actually communicating, and you're actually embarrassing yourself,
which is true, and it's interesting to me also the
(01:58):
generational difference between how we understand certain emojis. So there
is a lot to unpack with this, and it's always
been a topic that stuck with me. I was lucky
enough to get to speak at Dragon Con a couple
of years ago, and I brought this one up just
because it's one of those things that some of us
(02:22):
don't really put a lot of thought into, but I
find really fascinating and it is a part of our
life of like choosing that emoji, what does it mean?
And why don't they have this one? Anyway, please enjoy
this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and
(02:46):
welcome to STEPH. Mom never told you your protection of
iHeart Radio. So I have a question for you, Samantha.
Oh no, oh, yes, that's right. It's a real gotcha question. Okay,
do you use.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
A lot of emojis?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
You know, I have some favorites, and usually they're the
typical upside down smiley face, because I feel like that's
how I feel right now, uh huh. Or the ones
with the hearts on the face.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Oh yeah, yeah, like the love heart Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
And I also love a good thumbs up.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah that's like, you know, I feel like that definitely
goes a long way.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
But I've really gotten.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Into gifts as it took me three years to finally
figure it out, So more of a gift person.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Yeah, you do you like emojis?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I don't use them that often, but I do think
they're really useful in conversation. I use the thumbs up
a lot, and I used to like suspicious chin strokey
face a lot and.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Then the scared face.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's legit.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So perhaps that is some insights who are psyche.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I'm sure there is some kind of conversation of that
represents for each individual.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Oh I bet that's fascinating.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
I bet it does.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Well.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Okay, here's another question, and it's more personal. Oh no, yes,
have you engaged in a lot of sexting in your life?
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I have not because I can't take it seriously, Like
it just sounds so ridiculous that I am reading something
from my person and it's supposed to be sexy text.
So I don't I don't do you. And I say
this in an understanding. I've already asked, and I know
who I'm asking, but do you.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I have never purposefully done it, but I purposeful. I
definitely have caught myself in a situation where I'm like, oh,
this is sexting, and I.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Don't really know how I ended up there.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It's usually really goofy stuff that I thought was really silly,
but it's clear the other person did not, So never
on purpose.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I have to That's the problem is it was someone
is genuinely trying to sex to me. I just take
it as a joke, and I can't stop making some
kind of an appropriate joke instead of being very like
responsive to exactly what they're trying to do.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Sure, and that's a good segue into our topic today
because we're combining both emojis and sexting, and we're talking
about the eggplant emoji, which I have to say, if
I ever did get I think in the time I'm
thinking of where I was sexting, there was some mushroom
emojis happening, but no eggplant emoji.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
But it was the mushroom.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
It's also a dick.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Oh yeah, I guess in certain situations it is, but
it's kind of goofy, like every time I've encountered it,
if someone sent me an egg plant emoji, I would
automatically think it's funny.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yes, right, So I think I'm too literal for things
like that because in my mind, I'm like, look, because
maybe I have a really bad sense of what eggplants
are in general that I'm like, if your dick looks
like an eggplant, you probably should see somebody like that's
the only thing I.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Can think of.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Well, it is a medical condition, and we will talk
about that more later. So yes, first of all, we
should probably say we are going to tackle this in
a mature way. But you know, if you have kids
that you don't want hearing the history of eggplant, the
eggplant emoji, it's sexting.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Here's your warning.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Here you go. This is it. Stop the podcast.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Now, Yes, after it's already probably too late, we thought
we would do a lighter episode to hopefully give you
some distraction from all of this bad news and frightening
news and anxiety that we're inundated with lately. So this
is inspired by an episode I did over on the
other podcast I do savor about eggplant. Let me tell
(06:53):
you this podcast is all about the history of food
and drink, and having a segment and a food and
drink podcast about a sexting emoji was quite fun and surprising.
So you can go check out that episode if you
want to know more about the food and a little
bit about the sexting. But in this one, we're focusing
on the sexting and emoji part.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Right.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
I don't think we're gonna be talking about the food,
which is delicious, I agree.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Last night it was great.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Yeah, it's great and courage I love it.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Also possibly relevant now during our time of self quarantine,
because you know, I'm guessing there's more sex thing going on,
especially if you're not with your significant other or the
person that you've been talking to so you can't make
physical contacts, so it would make sense sex thing may
be happening. Although we do have a lot of video
chats as well. But who doesn't love a good sext
apparently me me.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I do think it's an art and I really appreciate
when people are good at it. I've witnessed some of
my friends in action, and I always am impressed.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Okay, maybe that's my problem because I don't I don't
know if my friends sexed, because that's not a thing
we necessarily talk about, so I don't know how good.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
They are some information, evanage all.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I guess I would have to start doing a survey
of all my friends soon.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yes, an official survey for the podcast.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Of course, for the podcast.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yes, So, as humans, we have been sexting pretty much forever,
from cave paintings to Carry Your Pigeons, to old school
cameras to the pager to the first text. The words
sex first appeared in Our lexicon in two thousand and four,
and you can see our past sexting episode for more
(08:33):
on the history of sexting.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
So all right, in case you don't know, and if so, wow,
that's impressive. The egg plant emoji or the aubergine emoji,
is a well known Internet shorthand for penises yep, to
the point that in January twenty fifteen, Instagram banned the
egg plant emoji from its search function and Facebook apparently
banned it too, And when Instagram rolled out search capabilities
(08:59):
for emojis, the eggplant was the only emoji not included.
Things that were included the poop emoji, the banana emoji,
the toilet emoji, which, by the way, I've not seen this,
the syringe emoji, and the cleft peach emoji for that ass.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Okay our Regina more on that second.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Oh, okay, okay So Facebook and Instagram spoke people. When
asked about this, band said it was in an effort
to combat the sexual harassment abuse women face online. Pictures
of nude women with their nipples, butts, and originitals covered
by emoji were also banned as a part of this
and okay, dictionary dot com has an epic entry on it.
(09:38):
We're going to have to read it.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
The eggplant emoji is a long purple eggplant, but it's
really just used to represent a penis.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I'm liking the fight that They're very direct about what
is happening in the world. So the eggplant emoji first
debuted in twenty ten and quickly became again a symbol
for the penis your wall. According to Among the New Words,
a quarterly article in the journal American Speech, the egg
plan emoji was used on Twitter to mean penis as
(10:08):
early as twenty eleven, and in March of twenty fourteen,
the video artist Jesse Hill translated Beyonce's head song Drunken
Love into an emoji, using the eggplant to represent jay
Z's penis.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
I still say he needs to go to a doctor.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
The dictionary entry continues, because again this is all from
dictionary dot com quote. Later that year, the emoji inspired
a trend on Instagram and other social media sites called
hashtag eggplant Friday, a hashtag that was linked to post
where men posted explicit images of their quote eggplants. But
in twenty fifteen, Instagram actually blocked the egg plan emoji
(10:45):
in references to it eg hashtag eggplant from its search functionality.
Instagram's band resulted in a campaign called hashtag Free the Eggplant,
modeled after the similar campaign hashtag Free the Nipple in
twenty twelve for gender equality. And underneath this is a
picture of an eggplant with a sad face on it,
captioned when You're a sweet and innocent eggplant, but people
(11:07):
keep using you as an emoji for a.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Dick And yes, I will be posting this on our
social media before the episode releases, so we'll put it
up in the story. So if you want to see
the sad face eggplant, if you haven't already, just tune in.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
It's pretty good.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
It's pretty so good. So yes.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
This band was specifically to combat something called hashtag eggplant Friday.
That was dudes posting outlines of their junk on Friday
and then tagging it with hashtag eggplant Friday. The association
between eggplanet dicks is so semented that rather pivoting the
similar shaped emojis like the banana or a husk of
a corn, people have instead started using eggplant adjacent things
(11:49):
like eggplant barm and Instadium might have shut it down,
but the eggplant emoji is still.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Going strong on Twitter and Tumblr.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Were you aware of eggplant Friday when it was happening, Samantha,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I wasn't.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I still am not aware of it, and I'm very
glad to have missed it.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Oh oh, there's a lot of documentation. I'm good as
a brief sexting primer for those who don't know, like me,
this was all news to me. Eggplant emogi plus mouth
emoji means oral sex, x plan emogi plus peach emoji
means vaginal or anal sex, and egg plant emogi plus
water droplets means ejaculation.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I did know that one.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Okay, the last one is what I've seen the most
of and everything else makes me just sad.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Or you know, I maintain as long as people are
having a good time.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
That's fair. That's fair.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Again, this is why I'm not good at sex thing
because I'm like, what.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Is happening to this full poor peach?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
A you feel sorrow for the beach, for the digital peach.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
I'm just saying so.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Egg plan emoji has even made an appearance in court.
Yes again, but that would be the Daytime show divorce court.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
So in twenty fourteen, while.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Presenting his case that had significant other was cheating, a
man testified, we both have iPhones, we both have emojis. Now,
I feel like certain emojis shouldn't just get sent to anybody.
And I'm referring to the mojis with the hard eyes,
blowing a heart kiss, and even the eggplant that some
people refer to as mel genitalia, in which the judge asked, wait,
(13:21):
I haven't heard about the eggplant. There's an eggplant and
the main responds, uh, yeah, an eggplant emoji, but it's
referred to as a mel genitalia. Uh. In conversations, I
love you had to explain the egg plant emoji to
a judge on camera.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
So good, So good.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
In twenty fifteen, Diplo named the egg plant emoji his
favorite emoji because, quote, it's code for stuff.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
I like that they had to be really obvious about that.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
It's code for stuff. Aren't all emoji's code for stuff?
I guess there's an extra layer.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I guess, I mean to be fair.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I think everybody was really confused by the poop EMOCHI too,
because it was, like I said, ice cream, is that poop?
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Why was it that eyes?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Mm hm. Canada is the biggest user of the poop emoji,
by the.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Way, and we have more facts around that, but first
we have a quick break for word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
And we're back, Thank you sponsor.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
So prior to emoji's, before they were a thing, the
banana was the food most usually associated with the penis
here in the United States, in part because of the
use of a banana in sex egg classes to demonstrate
how to properly put on a condom.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
No one in the US would have.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Thought of the eggplant as a symbol for a penis,
unless in the context of something you really didn't want.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Here's that medical condition egg plant penis.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
So this is a pnile fracture that causes discoloration and swelling.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Sounds painful, don't want it.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Eggplant wasn't a super well known food in the United
States outside of being fried or just covered in parmesan cheese.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I don't know how I feel about the inner changing
this conversation for eggplant.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
So, then in nineteen ninety eight, a telecom company introduced
the emoji keyboard as a marketing tactic targeted towards Japanese
teenagers so that they would buy more pagers.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Well, I will.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Say because it was in my heyday, the pagers and such,
it definitely was the beginning of hookups. You got a
specific text or if you got a specific like icon
or number set, it was like, oh come over.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Really yeah yeah, so interested in this?
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
So it's definitely like a code, like if there's certain
type of numbers it's nine, one, one or whatever. Typically
you know, use it to have them call back, but
they use different things in order or to represent different
things to be like, hey, this is the moment you
need to come over.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
My husband's not here or my wife's not here.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
You know, the cheating level, as well as if you're
a teenager like I was, we would use it to
spell boob somehow.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yeah, that's what they showed in the article the history
of sexing, and I was like, oh my gosh, children.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
I mean, we did that in calculators too, but the
page was even more fun.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
You're right, You're right.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
So these first emojis were mostly tame manga inspired smiley
faces and hand gestures, and then a Minute came up
with them as a way to help shy teenagers clarify
the meaning and emotion behind their texts. I will say
a lot of the times, if I feel like I'm
being too mean or harsh, I use an emoji, which
is interesting. Of the two hundred and eighty two emojis
included in the first release of emojis, there were a
(16:45):
handful of food items, including the banana, but no eggplant.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Other companies got in on the emoji game by offering
up competing sets of different, quote better emojis. Apple got
in on it in two thousand and eight, officially choosing
their favorite set of emojis to be their debut emoji
keyboard for the iPhone. Eggplant was not included. Nope, the
egg plan emogi was born in the United States and
twenty ten thanks to the Unicode Consortium.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Yeah, that sounds like a secret club, Well it kind
of is.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
The Unicode Consortium dictates the computer coding specs of things,
including emojis, so that they work across multiple platforms and devices,
and that includes the egg plan emoji. By twenty eleven,
the unicodes emojis were up and running on the iPhone
and in no time at all, Americans rallied behind the
(17:36):
sexting potential of the egg plant emoji.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Within three years.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
In December twenty fourteen, hashtag eggplant Friday was a movement
on Instagram and within months Instagram shut it down. And
apparently this is a very iPhone specific thing. That's what
a lot of articles I read said. The egg plant
emoji on androids is shorter and plumper. And so I
did a little sleep thing because I have an Android,
(18:02):
and I guess so it still looks pretty phallic to me.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
But and.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
But I like you into with a butt. But we should.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Say it's not just used for sexual situations, but also
in a non threatening way to communicate arousal, sort of
in a joking manner. And again I still hold to
if your penis looks like this eggplant, I'm going to
tell you to go see a damn doctor. And also
stat I don't want an eggplant near me.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I don't need these thoughts you're putting in my head.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
But yeah, I have seen it in a lot of
like you know, if somebody post a sheet pan of
cookies and then I'll see egg plant emoji, like you
know that kind of joking, Oh I'm so turned cookies again.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I'm gonna have to take another survey because my friends
and I don't ever use that in context of like, oh,
I'm so into these cookies.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So type up an official survey, get back to me.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Okay, you know what this is going to go out,
quarantining Live, hashtag quarantine life. Do the survey about penises,
Thank you and.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Egg plant emoji. Your responses are much appreciated.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
Despite this all for education, Okay it is.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
We're just trying to do a service for everybody.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I'm going to specifically send it to my female friends
and be like how many times do you get an
egg plant emoji?
Speaker 4 (19:26):
And if you're talking or flirting?
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Also, listeners, please weigh in on this.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Weigh in on this very important matter.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
I need to know how many of you use the
egg plan emoji and it's all how many of you
get sent egg plant emojis on the regular?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Spenty needs to know. Spenty needs to know.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Despite the food world being packed with phallic items, just packed, somehow,
we haven't applied them to men in the same way
we've applied food items to women. I mean, if you
can think about melonszams, peaches, pineapples, so many things.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Wait, what's the pineapples for? I?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
You know, I would love someone to write in but
I saw this in reference to a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
I have my suspicions, but.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Okay, yeah, someone needs to explain to me what the pineapple,
the peaches even kind of the yams and the melons.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
I get it when you cut it, but huh.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Okay, huh. But why did we settle on the eggplants?
Why didn't Americans in particular latch onto the eggplant as
a euphemism for dix. Well we'll get into that after
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
(20:49):
we're back, Thank you, sponsor.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
So surveys show the eggplant as a sex is particularly
American thing, although Canada UK and Australia are up there too.
There are a couple of theories as to why, and
one of the main ones is here in the US,
we really don't have a lot of familiarity with eggplant,
especially not the longer, thinner Japanese variety as opposed to
the shorter, squadier Italian type.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Oh my god, just saying these words.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Whereas we associate corn with teeth and maybe wholesomeness, do
we I am bananas like America.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
You know, you're in the Midwest and you got the
little corn on the cop things and you're eating it.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Maybe that's just me, maybe that maybe I'm just not
as imaginative. So and bananas with awkward sex edged classes,
which makes sense, and we don't we didn't really have
any cultural ideas attached to eggplants.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Others say that the reason Americans latched onto this is
down to the shape and the color, which isn't exactly correct,
but is more on point than yellow maybe or that's
how the argument goes. And I've also heard arguments about
the eggplant's size. So the banana doesn't suggest the big
now that the thunder wants to suggest.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Because we're all children, we're children.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
There's so many things.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
So in twenty thirteen, it was officially recommended for innu
window purposes by Fred Bennison.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
And this guy would know.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
He edited Emoji Dick, an emoji reimagining of Herman Melville's
classic Oh Dear God.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
That same year, it was mentioned in.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
A slide show by The Complex about what emojis were
best to use for sexting.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
I'm really glad we have guidelines.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, we need those guidelines, But I did find this
slideshow quite like. It starts off with a warning that
you make sure the girl or woman you are sexing
is at least eighteen, which yes, but also.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And it had a lot of like.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
If you're sexting two women at once, how to get
off twice without one of them knowing? And I'm not
opposed to consensual, polyamorous relationships or open relationships. It was
just the vibe of trickery manipulation that turned me off.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
But oh, yeah, that's bad.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, perhaps a conversation for another day. That twenty fourteen
Jesse Hill video played a huge part in proliferating the
eggplant's reputation in This Realm too. Bob was an early
adopter of eggplant Friday.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
That makes sense.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Early in twenty fifteen, a co author of the Unicode
Consortium sent out an email with the subject line sex
Emoji to their public listeners to bring attention to the
whole eggplant situation, and then a study that same year
from match dot com found a correlation between the sending
of emojis and higher rates of sex among its almost
fifty seven hundred single respondents, by margin about twenty percent
(23:36):
for both men and women. Academics believe this might be
because emojis do help clarify emotions and tones of digital interactions. Apparently,
frequent emoji users are also twice as likely to get married.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Oh is that what I've been doing wrong?
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah, it's your emoji lack of emoji use. That's definitely
what it is. Hashtag free the eggplant has so far
been unsuccessful. Eggplant Emoji Vibrator was released in twenty sixteen,
So there is that at least two companies have come
out of this whole thing too, Eggplant in the Mail
and Eggplant Mail, which both send eggplants in the mail
(24:12):
as joke gifts. I have done something similar with potatoes
and it was a huge hit.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
So is a potato sexual too.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
No, well, probably for some people, but it's just that,
like you're opening up a box and you think, oh,
what could this gift be, and it's a potato.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Something you can give single potato.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, okay, yes, yes, So that's kind of the history
of the eggplant emoji. There's some brief other things we
wanted to touch on other emoji news.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
I suppose yes, diverse emojis, I say, and hashtag free
the nipple and missectoy patients and breastfeeding mothers was successful also, however.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, a twenty fifteen study on worldwide emoji use found
that the US used more LGBTQ plus emojis than anywhere else.
We also use more quote female or oriented emoji and
that I think that's the females. Well until recently, no,
because there weren't that many. But speaking of you can
talk about that, Samantha.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
So the introduction of more diverse again in twenty fifteen,
the first modifier codes for changing skin tones where emojis
were introduced.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
And then there was a little bit of mixed reviews
for that.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Then in twenty twenty, another release included things like gender
neutral Santa Claus a man in a wedding dress, women
in tuxedos, and the transgender flag. This after a twenty
nineteen batch came with same sex couples and a twenty
seventeen push for non binary options, and this after a
twenty sixteen push to have less sexist female emojis, because
no joke, the only options for women at first were bride, Princess,
(25:48):
flamenco dancer, and playboy bunny. As compared to all the
male emojis in occupations doing things, the new female emojis
ranged from scientists, welder's code, mechanics, farmers, business people, and chefs.
On top of that, female versions for a lot of
the male emojis were introduced, and there was also a
woman wearing a hit job.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
So the introduction of new emoji is big business. By
the way, big companies pay upwards of an annual eighteen
thousand dollars to vote on them, and you've probably seen
companies petition for them like Taco Bell and Tagos come
to mind. Yeah, and about ninety percent of us use
them and on Facebook Messenger five billion or cent a day.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
So this stuff actually matters.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
It really does, and we should return return to the
world of emoji for a future episode, and did want
to say before we completely close out. We back when
Bridget and I were hosting together, we did an episode
on exhibitionism and why dick pics are a thing. So
if you want a more serious look at why women
(26:57):
receive unsolicited dick pics, which is not don't do it,
you can check out that episode. I would love again
for listeners to write in about their experience with the
eggplant emoji and sexting and if they were around and
remember eggplant Friday.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Is it good that it's shut down? Is it sad?
Just your experiences with it?
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Right? You can send those experiences to our email at
stuff Media, Momstuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can also
find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts or on
Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as always
to our super producer Andrew Howard, Thank you, and thanks
to you for listening Stuff I'm Never Told You the
protection of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out
(27:46):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Clifford Show
The Clifford Show with Clifford Taylor IV blends humor, culture, and behind-the-scenes sports talk with real conversations featuring athletes, creators, and personalities—spotlighting the grind, the growth, and the opportunities shaping the next generation of sports and culture.