About

The Pregnant Man Emoji is an emoji that was added to Apple's selection of emoticons in early 2022 as part of their iOS 15.4 software update. After its announcement and subsequent release, the pregnant man emoji, along with the "pregnant person" emoji, inspired memes as well as controversy, particularly when it was discussed on the Fox News show Tucker Carlson Tonight and when Elon Musk used it in a tweet about Bill Gates and his body. Many men started to use the emoji ironically to express emotions like being full.

Origin

On September 14th, 2021, the verified Twitter^[1] account Emojipedia posted a tweet that unveiled 112 new emojis coming to phones in 2022. The attached image showed multiple new Apple emojis such as a melting face, a saluting face and the pregnant man emoji, among others. Over the course of eight months, the tweet received roughly 1,000 likes (shown below).

Additionally, on September 15th, 2021, Emojipedia writer Jane Solomon created a blog post on their website^[2] titled, "Why Is There a Pregnant Man Emoji?" The blog discussed the history of gender within emojis and as well as the potential use to represent, "a food baby, a very full stomach caused by eating a large meal."

On January 27th, 2022, the pregnant man emoji had its first, official release as part of the iOS 15.4 beta.^[3] On April 18th, 2022, the emoji was officially released to all phones.^[4]

Spread

In late January 2022, reactions to the pregnant man emoji appeared en masse on social media following its beta release. Many of these initial reactions that received lots of engagement were based on outrage regarding the emoji. For instance, on January 28th, the Instagram^[5] page grandoldmemes posted a meme that photoshopped Pete Buttigieg into the emoji, earning roughly 4,800 likes in four months (shown below, left). The meme was reposted to Twitter^[6] by Donald Trump Jr. on the same day where it received roughly 12,000 likes in the same amount of time (shown below, right).

Also on January 28th, 2022, Fox News host Tucker Carlson covered the pregnant man emoji on his show. He tweeted the clip on the 28th where, over the course of four months, it received roughly 210,900 views and 7,300 likes (shown below).

In the real world, men can very easily get pregnant if they don’t take proper precautions. Watch out, guys. It could happen to you. Apple’s new iPhone update includes a reminder of this: a pregnant man emoji. pic.twitter.com/2oyl8BW1aZ

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 29, 2022

On April 22nd, 2022, Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted^[7] a meme that showed a side-by-side comparison between Bill Gates and the pregnant man emoji, captioning it, "in case u need to lose a boner fast." Over the course of one week, the tweet received roughly 1.4 million likes (shown below).

Overall, throughout early 2022, many memes surfaced that used the pregnant man emoji, like one posted on February 3rd, 2022, to Reddit's /r/Memes ^[8] that received roughly 10,100 upvotes in three months (shown below, left). On April 26th, 2022, the Instagram^[9] page yaf_ posted a meme that referenced I Don't Want To Live On This Planet Anymore, earning roughly 2,700 likes in one week (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References