Blue Emoji

About

Blue Emoji or Bluemoji is a custom set of stickers that consists of several dozen detailed blue-colored emoji. Starting in early 2021, emoji from the sticker pack achieved virality online as reaction images and as source material for memes, with the emoji eating a cookie and the emoji stifling a laugh with its hand gaining particular prevalence.

Origin

Prior to January 13th, 2015, an unknown user uploaded a collection of 79 detailed purple stickers (shown below). The emoji saw use on Twitter,^[9] Instagram^[10] and other social media platforms in 2015.

Between February 1st and February 13th, 2016, the custom emoji website Symbols & Emoticons^[1] reuploaded the stickers, now recolored blue, for further use on Facebook. Many of the emoji in the sticker pack achieved notable virality on the website. For example, the Cookie Muncher emoji received^[2] over 1,000 reactions (shown below, left), the Uncomfortable Smile emoji accumulated^[3] over 1,100 reactions (shown below, center), while the Holding It In emoji (shown below, right) gained^[4] over 1,200 reactions in six years.

Spread

On October 5th, 2016, Kaushik Godhani used the emoji to create a sticker pack for iMessage, which was later removed from the App Store.^[5] The sticker pack was again uploaded to Sticker.ly^[6] by user txxnjirc. Additionally, multiple reuploads of the emoji were made on Pinterest^[7][8] and other websites.

The Cookie Mucher emoji first gained virality as a reaction on Twitter where it was used to express awkwardness since at least February 2021. On February 13th, 2021, Twitter^[11] account @reactjpg archived the reaction image (shown below, left; example of use shown below, center). On February 23rd, 2021, iFunny^[12] user DiagnisedCancerPatient posted the first viral meme based on a Bluemoji, a "Spreading Misinformation" meme that gained over 1,400 smiles in one year (shown below, right).

Through 2021, Bluemoji, particularly Cookie Muncher and Holding It In gained viral spread as reactions on social media and as source material for image captions, also being used on TikTok. For example, on December 5th, 2021, TikToker^[13] @reap3r.mall0w posted a video in which they used the emoji as reactions, with the TikTok gaining over 15,400 likes in five months (shown below, left). On January 3rd, 2022, TikToker^[14] @chalkmealbedo posted a video that gained over 75,400 likes in four months (shown below, center).

The emoji saw further use in memes across all major platforms in early 2022.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References