🙉

Hear-no-evil Monkey Emoji 🙉

Paws pressed over its ears, the hear-no-evil monkey is kikazaru, the second of Japan's Three Wise Monkeys. It gets used for tuning out gossip, drama, or unwanted advice — the emoji version of 'la la la, not listening.'

What 🙉 means

A brown monkey with big eyes, a tiny nose, and a slightly open mouth with two hands covering both ears. The character that inspired this emoji is part of the Three Wise Monkeys philosophy of the traditional Japanese folklore.

The 🙉 Hear-No-Evil Monkey emoji depicts a sense of restraining from listening to bad or evil stuff; this can mean gross stuff, gossip, or anything that you as an individual would not prefer hear or listen to.

How and when to use it

If someone just said something that was meant to be a secret on a group chat, send this emoji as an awkwardly deafening reaction.
Send this emoji while telling someone about something horrifyingly cringe that your ears witnessed, like hearing someone fart or something.
You can also use this emoji in a conversation that you don't like having, for example, your friends constantly asking if you'll ever start getting serious in life.
This emoji can also be a great way of telling someone that they suck at singing (meaannn. therefore, make sure this is someone close and can take a joke).
You can also bring in this emoji while talking about some shocking news that you heard.
Send this emoji as a reaction to a bad song suggestion.

Other Names

🙉 Innocence
🙉 Surprise
🙉 Astonishment
🙉 Shocked
🙉 Deafening Silence
🙉 Kikazaru
🙉 Monkey Covering Ears
🙉 Drama
🙉 Tone Deaf
🙉 Can't Hear

🙉 in real conversations

What does 🙉 mean in a group chat?

Tuning out gossip or drama on purpose — the emoji version of clapping your hands over your ears and refusing to hear another word about it. 'Don't tell me, 🙉' shuts down a conversation before it starts, usually about something the sender would rather stay out of, like office politics or a friend's messy breakup.

Where does the 🙉 monkey come from?

It's kikazaru, the middle figure in Japan's Three Wise Monkeys — see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil — a proverb about avoiding wrongdoing by refusing to witness it. The emoji keeps the same paws-over-ears pose from that centuries-old image, just repurposed for tuning out gossip instead of literal evil.

Is 🙉 different from 🙈 and 🙊?

Yes — each monkey covers a different sense. 🙈 covers its eyes, for something you can't bear to look at or 'I didn't see that.' 🙉 covers its ears, for gossip or advice someone's actively blocking out. 🙊 covers its mouth, for a secret being kept or a comment bitten back. Same trio, three different ways of refusing to engage.

The lowdown

Category: Smileys & Emotion › monkey-face
Codepoints: U+1F649
Emoji version: Emoji 0.6
Shortcodes: :hear_no_evil:
Keywords: animal, ears, evil, face, forbidden, gesture, hear, listen, monkey, no, not, prohibited, secret, shh, tmi

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.