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No One Knows What This New Emoji Is Trying To Emote But It’s A Lot Of Fun Guessing

Ambiguity is the mother of invention.

We 158 new emojis to play with since the latest iOS 12.1 update dropped on Tuesday, and almost all of them are self-explanatory. Almost.

It’s your basic business – old people, red heads, jello cake and feet. But there’s one emoji that has everyone confused about what the exact intention behind this facial expression.

https://twitter.com/007dpz/status/1057782355031511040?

No one can quite figure out what this little guy is trying to tell us, though that’s not for lack of trying. Like any notable facial reaction image, everyone’s having a good time captioning it themselves with some educated guesses.

It could pass as pain or pleasure, so naturally some of the suggestions are in that sweet spot in the middle.

Then there’s some scientific hypotheses.

https://twitter.com/wolves_1990/status/1057971032101928960

And some scenario-based reasoning.

There’s also the explicitly erotic explanation that we were probably all thinking on some level.

https://twitter.com/fionaxalexander/status/1058103693990604800

https://twitter.com/1inher/status/1057782561684910080

You can also find some real life people that the mystery emoji is definitely channeling whether intentionally or not.

Whatever made the people at Apple create this emoji is unclear, but I think there’s clearly plenty of opportunities to put it to good use so I’m thoroughly on board with its inclusion.