The Peach emoji (🍑) is a fruit

emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversat ...

featuring a pinkish-orange

peach The peach (''Prunus persica'') is a deciduous tree first domesticated and cultivated in Zhejiang province of Eastern China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and others (the glossy-skinned, non-fu ...

. Social media users often use it as a suggestive icon for a butt during

sexting Sexting is sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, photographs, or videos, primarily between mobile phones. It may also include the use of a computer or any digital device. The term was first popularized early in the 21st ...

conversations.

Development and usage history

The ''peach'' emoji was originally included in proprietary emoji sets from

au by KDDI au, or au by KDDI, is a Japanese mobile phone operator. au is a brand marketed by KDDI in the main islands of Japan and by Okinawa Cellular in Okinawa for their mobile cellular services. au is the second-largest wireless carrier in Japan, wit ...

. As part of a set of characters sourced from

SoftBank Mobile is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...

, au by KDDI, and NTT Docomo emoji sets, the peach emoji was approved as part of

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

6.0 in 2010. Global popularity of emojis then surged in the early to mid-2010s. The peach emoji has been included in the Unicode Technical Standard for emoji (UTS #51) since its first edition (Emoji 1.0) in 2015.

Popularity on social media and cultural impact

The ''peach'' emoji is commonly used to represent

buttocks The buttocks (singular: buttock) are two rounded portions of the exterior anatomy of most mammals, located on the posterior of the pelvic region. In humans, the buttocks are located between the lower back and the perineum. They are composed ...

or even female genitalia in

conversations. This usage has been noted to be common in

the United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The emoji was used as a reference to buttocks including

impeachment Impeachment is the process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. It may be understood as a unique process involving both political and legal elements. In ...

and the desire to remove the

POTUS The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

from office in general on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and other social media. In line with the peach emoji's common usage in sexual contexts,

Emojipedia Emojipedia is an emoji reference website which documents the meaning and common usage of emoji characters in the Unicode Standard. Most commonly described as an emoji encyclopedia or emoji dictionary, Emojipedia also publishes articles and provi ...

noted that the emoji is popularly paired with the eggplant emoji ( 🍆), which is often used to represent a penis. During the impeachment proceedings against President Trump in 2019, the peach emoji was used to render "impeachment" as "im🍑ment". ''

The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...

'' noted that "peach" and "impeachment" are not etymologically related.

Reception

In 2015, ''

Vice A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character tra ...

'' claimed that the peach emoji is a "leading contender" for a vulva emoji. In 2021, ''

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...

'' stated that peach emoji joined together with new bubbles emoji will be "great", while ''

Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Food and drink * Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo" History * Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953 Hotels and resorts * Cosmopoli ...

'' ranked the peach emoji as the 11th "horniest emoji". In 2016,

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

brought back the peach emoji and attempted to redesign the emoji to less resemble buttocks; later some fans praised the emoji's comeback, but this was mostly met with fierce backlash in beta testing and Apple reversed its decision by the time it went live to the public. In April 2019,

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and Instagram both banned using the eggplant or peach emojis alongside sexual statements about "being horny".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Peach emoji Computer-related introductions in 2010 Peaches Individual emoji Euphemisms Symbols introduced in 2010 2010s in Internet culture 2020s in Internet culture