On Apple/iOS, it appears as a bright green, left-facing serpent coiled in an S-curve, glossy and sleek, with a pointed head, one bold eye, and a vivid red forked tongue (tiny fangs peeking if you look closely). Because it reads as mid-slither, people use it to signal stealth or danger, or to say โIโm moving in silence.โ Itโs a go-to punchline for a shady subtweet, a campy villain caption, or a playful warning that something slippery is coming.
Offline vibes show up too: Slytherin aesthetics, the Chinese zodiacโs Year of the Snake, herpetology-nerd life, the โno step on snekโ meme, and throwback nostalgia for the Nokia Snake game.
In chats, the snake emoji slinks in as shorthand for someone being sneaky, shady, or straight-up betraying the group chatโs trustโvery โsheโs a snake,โ with extra hiss. But itโs also been reclaimed as a flex, especially after pop culture moments like Taylor Swiftโs Reputation era turned the insult into a stadium-sized stage prop. On stan Twitter and TikTok, dropping it cranks up the dramaโteasing a plot twist, calling out a backstabber, or just serving sly, sneaky energy. It can even flirt with mischief: stealth-mode vibes when sliding into DMs or making a slick, tongue-in-cheek joke.
Definition
A sneaky looking snake coiled up with its tongue out to collect data for its Jacobson's organ.
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Emoji History The emoji code/ image log of changes.
This emoji was part of the proprietary / non-standardized emoji set first introduced by Japanese carriers like Softbank. These emojis became part of the Apple iPhone starting in iOS 2.2 as an unlockable feature on handsets sold in English speaking countries.
In iOS 5 / OSX 10.7, the underlying code that the Apple OS generates for this emoji was changed.
