Lollipop

A lollipop, usually a rainbow swirl on a white stick. Most platforms draw the big flat spiral kind sold at fairs and candy shops; a few draw a smaller round one. Either way the stick is what sets it apart from the wrapped sweet 🍬.

The real thing is hard boiled sugar shaped around a stick so you can eat it slowly without sticky fingers. Stick candy of this kind spread through Europe and North America in the early twentieth century, and the word lollipop itself is older: "lolly" was a northern English dialect word for tongue, so a lollipop is literally tongue-candy. The emoji inherits everything the candy stands for. It is cheap, bright, childish in the best sense, and the classic reward after a doctor's visit or haircut, which is why it turns up in posts about nostalgia, kids and treating yourself.

In messages it mostly means exactly that: candy, sugar, a sweet tooth, Halloween trick-or-treat bags, pastel and cute aesthetics, or a dessert menu. It also doubles as a compliment emoji, the picture version of calling someone a sweetie.

What does it mean when someone sends you 🍭?

Usually "sweet": a treat, a thank-you or an affectionate tease. Dropped after a favour, it is a sugary thank-you. Next to a photo it labels the dessert or the Halloween haul. Sent to a friend or partner on its own, it is a light "you're sweet" or an invitation to go get something sugary.

The one reading to check for is sexual. Because eating a lollipop is sucking and licking, the emoji is a stock innuendo for oral sex in flirty chats, the same way 🍆 and 🍑 stand in for body parts. This only works when the conversation is already heading that way: a lone 🍭 from your aunt is candy, a 🍭 with a wink from a date is probably not. The words around it decide, and in a group chat or work chat it is almost never meant that way.