Monkey

Playful mischief, or simply a monkey. People send 🐒 when someone is monkeying around: a friend pulling faces, a kid climbing the furniture, yourself admitting you goofed off all afternoon. "Little monkey" is an old affectionate name for a lively child. The other big use is literal: a zoo visit, a jungle holiday, a wildlife documentary, or the monkey that grabbed your sunglasses on holiday. The artwork differs from phone to phone, but it shows a whole, generic monkey rather than any named species.

Is the monkey emoji racist?

It can be: who it points at matters most. Comparing Black people to monkeys and apes is a long-standing racist trope, used to deny their humanity. So 🐒 under a zoo photo or about your own silliness is harmless, but sent at a Black person as a comparison it reads as racist abuse, and "it was just a joke" rarely undoes that.

That use is real. After England lost the Euro 2020 final on penalties in July 2021, Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho received floods of racist messages on social media, many full of monkey and banana emoji. Reporting or condemning that abuse is, of course, a different thing from sending it.

🐒 or 🐵: which monkey do I want?

🐒 is the animal; 🐵 is the face. 🐵 is a close-up with eyes and a grin, so it does feelings: cheeky, embarrassed, "oops". 🐒 shows the whole animal and reads more literally: this is a monkey, or someone is acting like one. Both work for monkey business; 🐒 suits the zoo caption, the safari photo and the Year of the Monkey.