🙈 is a monkey with both hands over its eyes. Together with 🙉 (hear-no-evil) and 🙊 (speak-no-evil) it comes from the three wise monkeys carved at the Tōshō-gū shrine in Nikkō, Japan, a proverb about avoiding evil. As an emoji, though, 🙈 outruns its two siblings by a wide margin, and its meaning has shifted from moral lesson to playful embarrassment: “I can’t watch,” “so awkward,” “oops.” Most people call it the “shy monkey” or “embarrassed monkey” rather than its official name.
How it’s used
- Embarrassment: “I said that last night?? 🙈”
- Shy confessions or humblebrags: “Okay fine, we’re dating 🙈”
- Owning a mistake: “Overslept again 🙈”
- Can’t bear to look: “Too scared to open my results 🙈”
- Dodging spoilers: “Haven’t seen it yet, don’t tell me 🙈”
Where 😳 is embarrassment that freezes you, 🙈 is embarrassment you act out by covering your face. 🤭 (hand over mouth) is about stifling a giggle, and 🙊 is “I shouldn’t have said that” or “my lips are sealed.” Of the three monkeys, 🙈 is the most versatile and the softest.
Korea, Japan and the English-speaking world
In English, 🙈 pairs with “I can’t look,” “oops” and “so embarrassing,” and it is a staple of light flirting, where it performs mock shyness. It has been used across age groups for years; for a while it was joked about as the emoji moms love most. Very few users think about the Nikkō origin, and the “see no evil” sense has largely disappeared.
In Korea it is firmly settled as 부끄부끄 (“blush blush”) or “how embarrassing.” The classic use is on Instagram: post a selfie or a couple photo and add a single 🙈 to mean “shy to show this, but I want to show it.” It is perceived as a young women’s emoji, and when men use it it reads as aegyo, deliberate cuteness. The three-monkeys backstory is not widely known.
In Japan the name is 見ざる (mizaru, “not seeing”), which ties it directly to the Nikkō carving, so the original “I don’t want to see this” or “I’ll pretend I didn’t see” sense survives better than elsewhere. At the same time it is used just as much for 恥ずかしい (embarrassed) and 照れる (bashful), and context decides. Japanese users are also more likely to send all three monkeys in a row (🙈🙉🙊) as a set.
Where it gets misread
- If you mean the original proverb, “turn away from evil,” most readers will see cute embarrassment instead. It doesn’t suit a serious message.
- Reacting to someone’s mishap or bad news with 🙈 can look like you find it funny or cringeworthy. Skip it when the person needs sympathy.
- It is easy to mix up with 🙊, which means “I misspoke,” “secret” or “shut me up,” and with 🙉, “I don’t want to hear it,” the least used of the three.
- Because of the flirtatious undertone, heavy use of 🙈 in work messages can come across as unserious.
Design differences by platform
Apple’s brown monkey presses both hands firmly over its eyes, and the slightly visible mouth hovers between a smile and a grimace, which suits the embarrassed meaning well. Google’s Noto is rounder and lighter in color, the cutest and most cartoonish. Microsoft’s Fluent adds fur texture and depth, a little closer to a real monkey. Samsung hints at eyes peeking between the fingers, giving it a “sneaking a look” feel. Only hand placement and mouth shape differ; the image of a monkey hiding its eyes is the same everywhere, so the meaning holds across platforms.
