🫣

Face with Peeking Eye Emoji 🫣

Both hands cover the face but one eye peeks through the fingers — the face with peeking eye is what happens when curiosity beats out fear. It's used for watching something cringeworthy, embarrassing, or scary through the gaps in your fingers, the emoji equivalent of 'I shouldn't be looking but I can't stop.'

What 🫣 means

A yellow face with eyes wide open, raised eyebrows, and a partially open mouth, all seen in parts beneath and a pair of yellow hands. One hand covers the left eye, and the other covers the right, but with a "V" opening through the index and middle finger, revealing the terrified eye.

The 🫣 Face With Peaking Eye emoji describes a frightened or cautious face. This emoji is the literal translation of our faces while watching something horrifying. Thus, it signifies horror, surprise, shock, unable to look nor look away, and a sense of staring, but from the corner of the eye.

How and when to use it

If someone sent you something spine chilling or absolutely terrifying and scarring, you could respond with this emoji as a way of saying, "I couldn't watch one bit of it without my eyes closed 🫣". Ironic, yeah.
Sometimes, we're captivated by certain things. We push ourselves to consume it fully although it scares every ounce of us. This emoji defines that captivation, and you can use 🫣 in related contexts.
🫣 also signifies the expression of looking at something you shouldn't have, going by the fact that the mouth is wide open and seemingly surprised. If you're responding to such scandalous content, use 🫣
If you're referring to the act of staring but with an awkward and visible gesture that pretty much attracts all the more attention, use this emoji.
You could also apply this emoji talking about a nosy someone or if you're that nosy someone and texting your buddy to "keep an eye or two" on someone.

Other Names

🫣 Scared/Frightened Face
🫣 Too Scared to Look
🫣 Can't Look Away
🫣 Staring Face
🫣 Peeking Face
🫣 Nosy
🫣 Captivated Face
🫣 Scandalized Face
🫣 Scarred

🫣 in real conversations

What does 🫣 mean from a girl?

“I can't watch, but I'm watching” — the reaction to something cringe, scary or scandalous she physically cannot look away from. Common under prank videos and secondhand-embarrassment clips.

What does 🫣 mean from a guy?

Getting caught looking at something he shouldn't — a snooped text thread, a spoiler, an ex's Instagram. The peeking fingers do the confessing for him.

What does 🫣 mean in texting?

Bracing for impact. It shows up right before spoilers (“🫣 don't read further”) and right after someone shares gossip too good to ignore.

The lowdown

Category: Smileys & Emotion › face-hand
Codepoints: U+1FAE3
Emoji version: Emoji 14.0
Shortcodes: :face_with_peeking_eye:
Keywords: captivated, embarrass, eye, face, hide, hiding, peek, peeking, peep, scared, shy, stare

How it looks across platforms

Seeing a blank box instead of the emoji somewhere? Here's why that happens. Curious why the designs above don't match to begin with? Here's why that happens too.