About

Beggar Emoji, also known as Begging Emoji or Homeless Emoji, refers to a stock illustration depicting a yellow emoji character as a beggar asking for money. Starting in August 2023, the emoji has been used in caption memes on X / Twitter, typically used to convey the sentiment of asking others for something trivial.

Origin

On March 6th, 2019, artist yayayoyo uploaded a stock image of a yellow emoji with a dirty hat and wearing a ragged hat panhandling with the description "Homeless beggar emotiocon begging for money" to several stock image sites including iStockPhoto^[1] and Shutterstock^[2] (shown below).

On August 19th, 2023, X^[3] user @northstardoll posted the emoji with the caption "how I feel asking for constant reassurance and attention." The post (shown below) received over 14,000 reposts and 81,000 likes in 10 months.

Spread

On August 20th, 2024, X^[4] user @beemoviehive posted the image with the caption, "how it feels asking people to hangout" (shown below, left; original post has since been removed). The post went viral online, being spread to other sites through screenshots and remade versions.

For example, on December 18th, 2023, the Instagram^[5] account for 9GAG posted a meme copying the post that garnered over 170,000 likes in six months (shown below, right).

The image appeared in more caption memes on X / Twitter in the following months. For example, on March 26th, 2024, X^[6] user @cloudyclimb paired the image with the caption, "this is what I feel like putting hashtags on a tweet." The post (shown below) received over 5,000 reposts and 43,000 likes in three months.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References