What Does the Eye Lips Eye 👁👄👁 Emoji Really Mean?

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Plus, learn how this emoji combo played a huge prank on Silicon Valley

Co-authored by Dan Hickey Reviewed by Candace Gasper

Last Updated: May 12, 2025 Fact Checked

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Meanings & Uses

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Origin

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BLM & Tech Hype Controversy

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We’ve all made this face before: 👁👄👁. This funny emoji combo is the perfect way to show your confusion, awkwardness, or surprise at something or someone, but did you know it was also central to a huge Silicon Valley prank? In this article, we’ll show you what this emoji really means and how to use it, plus explore how it exploded in popularity and raised over $200,000 as a prank. Keep scrolling to learn more!

Eye Lips Eye 👁👄👁 Emoji Explained

The 👁👄👁 emoji combo represents surprise or shock at something cringey, awkwardness, or confusion. It blew up in popularity after becoming a meme template on Twitter in the late 2010s. It’s also related to the “It Is What It Is” meme and was used to market a prank app of the same name in 2020.

Section 1 of 3:

Eye Mouth Eye 👁👄👁 Emoji Meanings & Uses

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Surprise or shock at something that is weird and cringey Have you ever witnessed something so bizarre it made your jaw drop a little? Whether it’s some aggressive PDA on the bus or a cringe take on current events on TikTok, the 👁👄👁 emoji face perfectly captures that brief moment of speechlessness while you process what you just saw. Leave it in the comments to show you’re not quite sure what’s going on or send it in a text to describe your reaction to something weird.
- “What did I just watch… 👁👄👁”
- “I overheard my boss arguing with his wife on the phone and I was like 👁👄👁 the whole time”
- How to respond: If someone drops 👁👄👁 in the comments of your post, it means they’re a bit turned off or confused by what you posted. If you like, you can reply to explain yourself. Or, just ignore the haters—it’s your account, after all!
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Awkwardness There’s just something…uncomfortable about this face, isn’t there? The wide-open eyes and the mouth that looks like it’s not quite sure what to say sum up exactly what it feels like to be put on the spot unexpectedly. When you’re not quite sure which words to use or you’re caught doing something embarrassing or awkward, let 👁👄👁 do the talking for you.
- “👁👄👁 I’m not quite sure what to say…”
- “The maintenance guy came into my apartment while I was changing and I just stood there like 👁👄👁 lol”
- How to respond: If someone’s feeling awkward because of your last message, offer a quick apology or politely ask why they’re feeling that way if you’re not sure what was odd about your message.
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Confusion or a lack of understanding The blank, open-mouthed stare of the 👁👄👁 face is perfect when you have no idea what’s going on. Comment 👁👄👁 on a post when you don’t quite understand what someone is talking about or use it as a reply in your texts to show you need a bit more clarification.
- “👁👄👁 I’m gonna need you to explain that again”
- “Every time my teacher says to find the hypotenuse I’m like 👁👄👁”
- How to respond: If someone seems confused by your text or post and sends 👁👄👁, reply with a clearer, easier-to-understand message to get your point across. You might ask specifically what the person is confused about first.
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“It is what it is” There’s a dual meaning here. 👁👄👁 is the kind of blank face you might make when things don’t go your way and you have no choice but to roll with it—it is what it is! The 👁👄👁 emoji combo also became associated with a fake social media app supposedly called “It Is What It Is” in 2020 (more on that below).^{[1]
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Research source} Comment or send this combo whenever you have an “oh well” moment to show you’re accepting your fate and moving on.
- “Welp, I guess that’s all we can do 👁👄👁”
- “I guess 2nd place isn’t so bad… 👁👄👁”
- How to respond: If someone’s coping with an unfortunate turn of events, offer them support or encouragement to help them turn things around.

Section 2 of 3:

Where did the eye mouth eye 👁👄👁 emoji come from?

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One of the earliest tweets to use the emoji is from September 11, 2015. User @mily2502 tweeted some lyrics from the Backstreet Boys song “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” and included the emoji combo as a jokey response to the lyrics “Am I original? / Am I the only one? / Am ah SEX-U-AAAAAALLL / 👁👄👁.”^{[2]
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The 👁👄👁 face quickly became a meme used in a variety of online jokes. A few years later in 2018, comedian Jaboukie Young-White (@jaboukie) used the emoji as a punchline in a joke tweet to comment on Americans’ general lack or depth of history compared to other cultures:^{[3]
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- “people in other countries: that church was nearly burnt down in 1315 by a queen who found her husband cheating / americans: wow 👁👄👁 that mcdonalds has been there for 30 years”
- Another viral tweet from @AnasApprentice3 shared an image of artist pencil boxes with pictures of eyes and lips on them arranged on a store shelf to resemble the emoji combo,
The now-defunct website StayHipp described the emoji combo as an “individual who witnessed the recording of a bizarre, funny, or cringey TikTok video and is staring in shock, disgust, or confusion.”^{[4]
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Research source} Sounds like a pretty apt description for such a versatile and abstract string of emojis!

Section 3 of 3:

Eye Mouth Eye 👁👄👁 Emoji BLM & Tech Hype Controversy

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In 2020, techies hyped up an "app” called “It Is What It Is” with 👁👄👁. Some influential tech employees started adding 👁👄👁 to their Twitter handles and even created an ominous, blank website featuring the emojis that only said “It Is What It Is.” They never explained what “It” was. An app? A website? Some new service? Like with other internet trends, a big sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) swept social media and users became fixated on figuring out what “It” was.^{[5]
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- “It is what it is” was also a popular meme at the time. It featured a video of a teenager laughing and saying “It is what it is” while his friends repeated the phrase around him.^{[6]
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The hype drew in thousands of wanna-be users—and venture capitalists. Hoping to get in on the next big thing in tech, venture capitalists started offering the “It Is What It Is” group (which had about 60 members) millions.^{[7]
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Research source} At the same time, up to 50,000 people signed up for the app’s “waitlist,” hoping to be one of the first to experience the trendiest new social media experience.^{[8]
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- “It Is What It Is” started collecting proof of donations to charities supporting the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to bump future users up higher on the “waitlist.”
- The charities included organizations helping Black and trans people like the Loveland Foundation, The Okra Project, and The Innocence Project.
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Eventually, “It Is What It Is” announced that “It” was a prank. After just a few days of hype, the team behind “It Is What It Is” announced there was no app coming. The entire thing had started as a joke among some friends and quickly became a large-scale trolling effort (with good intentions, as the team raised nearly $200,000 for charities).^{[9]
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Research source} Reactions to the prank were mixed:
- Some saw the stunt as a brilliant commentary on the popularity of memes and the “hype culture” in tech that pushes people toward the next new thing—even if it’s not real.
- Others thought the prank made light of the BLM movement and the struggle of Black people in America by reducing the movement to a meme.