51吃瓜

The听eggplant听emoji first debuted in 2010 and quickly became a symbol for the penis. According to 鈥淎mong the New 51吃瓜s,鈥� a quarterly article in the journal听American Speech, the听eggplant听emoji was used on Twitter to mean 鈥減enis鈥� as early as 2011. In March of 2014, the video artist Jesse Hill 鈥渢ranslated鈥� Beyonc茅鈥檚 hit song 鈥淒runk in Love鈥� into emoji, using the听eggplant听to represent Jay Z鈥檚 penis.

Later that year, the emoji inspired a trend on Instagram and other social-media sites called “#EggplantFriday,” a hashtag that was linked to posts where men posted explicit images of their 鈥渆ggplants.鈥� But in 2015, Instagram actually blocked the听eggplant听emoji and references to it (e.g., “#eggplant”) from its search functionality. Instagram鈥檚 ban resulted in a campaign called “#FreetheEggplant,” modeled after the similar campaign “#FreetheNipple,” in 2012 for gender equality.

In 2016, the American Dialect Society named the听eggplant听emoji听the 鈥淢ost Notable Emoji鈥� of 2015 due to its widespread use as sexual innuendo. The听eggplant听emoji has also inspired two companies, Eggplant in the Mail and the Eggplant Mail, which let customers send actual eggplants in the mail as gag gifts. And, the company Emojibrator released an听eggplant听emoji vibrator in 2016 鈥� of course.