Smiling Sweating Emoji — A bright yellow AI-generated emoji face with an anxious smile and visible water droplets against a pure black background.

Smiling Sweating Emoji

2023Reaction image / image macrosemi-active

Published March 31, 2026

Also known as: Sweating Emoji · Smirking Sweating Emoji

The Smiling, Sweating Emoji is an AI-generated image of a yellow emoji smirking with visible sweat drops against a black background. Created using Midjourney in June 2023, the image went viral across Twitter/X and Instagram in late 2023 as both a reaction image and the centerpiece of the "Imagine 2 Onions" meme format.

ai generated memes reaction memes absurdist humor memes emoji origin memes

Overview

The Smiling, Sweating Emoji is a hyper-realistic rendering of a yellow emoji face set against a solid black background2. The emoji wears a knowing smirk while beads of sweat glisten on its surface, giving it a weirdly human quality that sets it apart from standard emoji designs2. The image was generated through Midjourney AI, inspired by a smirking emoticon commonly used on Discord2. Its slightly uncanny, almost too-detailed appearance made it perfect for expressing nervous confidence, guilty pleasure, or smug self-awareness in online conversations.

Origin & Background

Platform
Midjourney (image creation), Instagram / Twitter/X (viral spread)
Key People
realboneduck, @hugeplateofketchup8
Date
2023

Know Your Meme user realboneduck created the Smiling, Sweating Emoji using Midjourney on June 19, 20232. The user's Midjourney prompt drew inspiration from the smirking emoticon popular in Discord servers2. Screenshots documenting the original creation were later submitted to Imgur by realboneduck2.

The image's first known appearance in the wild came on October 6, 2023, when X user @Demonic7340 shared it within a message screenshot, picking up 32 likes over the following four months2. According to realboneduck, the original repost likely came from one of two since-deleted X accounts, either @TroubledHonky or @ChillAssMinor2.

How It Spread

The emoji's breakout moment arrived on November 7, 2023, when Instagram user @hugeplateofketchup8 paired it with the caption "Imagine 2 Onions. Heck, Imagine 3 Onions"2. That post racked up over 129,100 likes in three months and launched the "Imagine 2 Onions" meme format1. The absurd simplicity of imagining onions paired with the emoji's sweaty smirk struck a nerve with Instagram's meme community1.

Three days later, on November 10, 2023, X user @BigBabyScumbag posted the image with the caption "when the waiter repeats my order back to me and it sounds fire," earning over 89,000 likes in three months2. That tweet got widely reposted on Instagram in the following days2.

The emoji spread to Reddit by late November 2023, appearing in a No Nut November meme on /r/nonutnovember that pulled in over 220 upvotes2. An AI-expanded version of the image with a wider crop also began circulating, with X user @fallenchungus sharing one such version on December 25, 2023, that collected over 3,800 likes2. A higher-quality, wider-cropped version was later shared by Redditor comicguy69 in the /r/Persona5 comment section on October 23, 20242.

The "Imagine 2 Onions" format migrated to TikTok as well, where users created variations with escalating numbers of onions, though the joke's simplicity meant the format burned through its novelty relatively quickly on that platform1.

How to Use This Meme

The Smiling, Sweating Emoji works in two main ways. As a reaction image, people typically drop it into conversations or replies to express guilty pleasure, nervous excitement, or smug satisfaction. The emoji's expression reads as "I know this is wrong but I'm into it." Common reaction captions follow the format "when [slightly embarrassing situation that secretly feels good]."

As an image macro, the emoji gets paired with absurdist or non-sequitur text, as in the original "Imagine 2 Onions" format. The humor comes from the mismatch between the emoji's intense, sweaty expression and the mundane or random text overlay.

Fun Facts

The original Midjourney prompt was based on a simple Discord smirking emoticon, but the AI produced something far more detailed and unsettling than expected2.

The original reposter's identity is still unknown, as both suspected accounts (@TroubledHonky and @ChillAssMinor) were deleted before the image went viral2.

The "Imagine 2 Onions" format drew some criticism for being a "one-joke meme" with limited room for evolution1.

Despite the quick burnout of the onions format on TikTok, the base emoji image kept finding new life as a standalone reaction image on X and Reddit into 20242.

Derivatives & Variations

Imagine 2 Onions:

The most prominent spinoff, started by @hugeplateofketchup8's November 2023 Instagram post. Users created escalating versions imagining increasing quantities of onions[1].

AI-Expanded Versions:

Wider-cropped versions of the emoji generated using AI outpainting tools, showing more of the emoji's "body" below the original frame[2].

Voiceover Edits:

TikTok users added voiceover narration to the image macro format, reading the onion-related captions aloud over the emoji[1].

Frequently Asked Questions