The Holy Moly emoji, also known as Holay Molay, is a wide-eyed yellow emoticon that exclaims ‘the phrase ‘Holy Moly!’ in a speech bubble over its head. With origins in the early days of the internet, the simple smiley has joined the legion of memes calling back to yesteryear.
Origins of the Holy Moly emoji
The Holy Moly emoticon first appeared on Smiley Central in 2003. The gif shows a wide-eyed and open-mouthed yellow emoji with a speech bubble over its head displaying the phrase. The animated emoticons were popular to use in different sites, often forum-based one.
When the website was shut down in 2012, it seemed to be the end of many unique ways of online expression. Just a year later, however, the Holy Moly emoticon was added to the Symbols & Emoticons for Facebook.
In 2017, Holy Moly appeared on a new mobile app called Talking Smileys Emoji. For the first time, a voice was given to the phrase. In July 2021, @ouchjake on YouTube deep-fried version of the sound.
In the early 2020s, Holy Moly enjoyed some meme success during the popularity of low-quality memes. As it spread to TikTok in 2023, the format became frequently paired with silly cat videos.
The audio went viral on TikTok, quickly becoming a popular sound. Since then, both the emoji and the sound has spawned many meme iterations.
Meme examples
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