When we talk about poop, I mean pile of poo emoji💩, have you ever wondered why cartoon poop is in this particular shape? And do you want to know how this weird emoji was made? (I'd say Yes!!) So, I did some research of this emoji [💩], and the result is really make me surprised (and kind of gross🤢).

Why cartoon poop is in this shape?

In manga or graffiti, poop always looks like in a coiled pyramid-shape, even though you can hardly see this shape in reality. Through investigation, I found that this shape may has multiple origins that were born around the world. However, there are two major origins which from Europe and Japan.

  • According to Yakult's 2006 "Toilet Calendar”, it is said that this specific shape of 💩 was originated from the parody of a coiled snake in the Edo period (1603 ~ 1867). There is also a theory said that in Kmakura period (1185 ~ 1333), a painting called “Gaki-Zoushi (餓鬼草紙)” had already painted poop in coiled shape.
  • 🔺 Part of the painting of the Hungry Ghosts Scroll

  • In the Europe, the coiled shape seems also to be established as a symbolic form of poop, as in Japan. Furthermore, a French printmaker named Bernard Picart (1673-1763) had this painting called The Perfumer, which also had coiled poop.

💡 Do you know perfumes may contain trace amounts of fecal odor components??? Ewww🤢

So these are the 2 possible origins of the classic poop shape. (It is really a torture to write this part…)

The history and A Cruel fact of poop emoji

In Japan, the poop shape was established nationwide through a pink poop character called "Unchi-kun (Poop-Boy)", which was created by Akira Toriyama's in his well-known manga "Dr. Slump". Emoji first appeared in Japan, so there is definitely a connection between "Unchi-kun" and the poop emoji.

🔺 Dr.Slump's main character: Arale Norimaki, and Unchi-kun

This smiling and steaming pile of poop emoji first showed in the emoji set for the J-Phone (now known as SoftBank Mobile) released in 1997, and it appears like this [ ].

Since 2010, emoji standardized by Unicode, the poop emoji had its own code [U+1F4A9]. And with the development of each vendor, the poop emoji shows some different in each platform, but still all of them have the same coiled shape.

🔺 Which one do you like?


Here I'm going to bring you some shocked and gross secret about this emoji.

Do you know that before the iOS 9.1, Apple's poop emoji 💩 was the same swirl that was used on the cone of ice cream 🍦 ?! Raymond Sepulveda, one of the emoji designer worked in Apple, designed 💩 first, then copy pasted it on to the cone and remove its eyes and mouth, change it to white... The birth of our favorite ice cream emoji! Thank god Apple changed its ice cream emoji after iOS 10.2, or I may feel awkward when I use Soft Ice Cream emoji......

Summary

That's all about the poop emoji. Though it has some bad meaning, people still "so passionate about the smiling poop emoji", and it is already become one of the most popular emoji. People make poop emoji cupcakes🧁, poop emoji blanket or T-shirt👕, even a couple transformed a termite mound in Western Australia into a smiling poop emoji!! Isn't this crazy?

🔺 It is located on the edge of the North West Coastal Highway in the Pilbara. CREDIT: Amanda Fitzgerald/Facebook


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