You’ll most often spot it under stinky-trend stories, sketchy buffet pics, or those overpriced-rent screenshots that make your wallet queasy. It meshes perfectly with gagging jokes, “that ain’t it, chief,” and the classic “instant ick,” and it frequently appears right before the face-vomiting emoji when the situation fully derails. Vibe-wise, it’s the universal “nope—my stomach just logged out” response, and it moonlights as playful melodrama when a caption is so cheesy it’s cute-and-sickening, deployed with affection and a little shade.
On Apple/iOS, the icon is a round green face with a darker gradient, furrowed brows, eyes squeezed shut, puffed chipmunk cheeks, and a tight flat mouth like it’s holding everything down—distinct from the actual puke emoji. The gaze is straight-on, very “about to hurl while still clinging to dignity.” People use it for anything gross, cringe, or aggressively unappetizing—mystery leftovers, cursed recipes, or that TikTok that served the ick in 0.5 seconds—as well as for motion sickness, hangovers, food-poisoning flashbacks, and the dating trend of catching “the ick” over tiny red-flag behaviors.
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Emoji History The emoji code/ image log of changes.
This emoji first appeared in OSX / iOS after the iOS 10 update.
