The brain emoji is the internet’s wrinkly little engine of genius, panic, and memes. People drop it to flex a clever take (big brain time, a.k.a. a 200 IQ move), to mark study grind mode, to talk mental health or therapy, or to admit they’re catastrophically overthinking. It fuels the “wrinkly brain vs. smooth brain” joke economy, the eternal “my last two brain cells” gag, and the TikTok-era “brainrot” when a sound won’t vacate your skull. For Halloween, it moonlights as zombie snack lore; for flirty banter, it winks at sapiosexual vibes or “big brain energy.”
On Apple/iOS, it’s a bubblegum-pink brain in side profile with tightly packed gyri and a tiny brainstem nub, shaded like a glossy anatomy model. The folds are deeply carved with soft highlights and shadows that make it look squishy and 3D—instantly recognizable even at small sizes. In texts, it pairs neatly with the light bulb, coffee, books, robot, or the exploding head when your idea evolves from “huh” to galaxy brain. You’ll also see it used sarcastically when someone makes a spectacularly not-smart choice, or tenderly in threads about ADHD, burnout, and neurodiversity. From quiz-night brags to “brain vs. brawn” debates, it’s a tidy symbol for everything happening upstairs.
| Twitter Emoji Popularity (Rank) | 519 of 2393 |
| Apple/iOS Picture | ![]() |
| Google Android Picture | ![]() |
| Google Hangouts Picture | Image not available |
| Twitter.com Picture | Image not available |
| LG Emoji Picture | Image not available |
| Samsung Emoji Picture | Image not available |
| Phantom Open Emoji Picture | Not created yet |
| ASCII Conversion | |
| "Short Code" Name | |
| Keywords |
| Emoji Code Version | iOS 11 - Current |
|---|---|
| UTF-8 Unicode Character(s) | 🧠 |
| UTF-8 Character Count | 1 |
| Character(s) In Input | |
| AppleColorEmoji Font (available in OSX/iOS) | 🧠 |
| Decimal HTML Entity | 🧠 |
| Hexadecimal HTML Entity | 🧠 |
| Hex Code Point(s) | 1f9e0 |
| Formal Unicode Notation | U+1F9E0 |
| Decimal Code Point(s) | 129504 | UTF-8 Hex (C Syntax) | 0xF0 0x9F 0xA7 0xA0 |
| UTF-8 Hex Bytes | F0 9F A7 A0 |
| UTF-8 Octal Bytes | 360 237 247 240 |
| UTF-16 Hex (C Syntax) | 0xD83E 0xDDE0 |
| UTF-16 Hex | d83edde0 |
| UTF-16 Dec | 55358 56800 |
| UTF-32 Hex (C Syntax) | 0x0001F9E0 |
| UTF-32 Hex | 01F9E0 |
| UTF-32 Dec | 129504 |
| Python Src | u"\U0001F9E0" |
| PHP Src | "\xf0\x9f\xa7\xa0" |
| C/C++/Java Src | "\uD83E\uDDE0" |