Safety Pin Necklace Meaning: Be Ready and Willing to Throw Down to Protect Others

When you're out and about and find yourself in a harrowing situation, there are some code phrases and secret symbols that could help save your life. For instance, if you're a woman at a bar and some creepazoid won't leave you alone you can order an angel shot .

This alerts bar staff that you're feeling unsafe and restaurants/bars will help facilitate your exit. And if you see someone wearing a safety pin necklace , that actually could have several meanings.

Safety Pin Necklace Meaning #1: No suicide promise

Depending on who you ask, these nifty little tools used for fastening garments and securing baby diapers contain very specific deeper symbolism.

Toward the end of 2023, TikTok user Margareth Cabuang ( @margareth_finds ) uploaded a viral clip where she wrote that if you see someone wearing a safety pin necklace, they're making an implied promise.

And that vow is that they will never engage in any acts of self-harm or suicide. The video, which is set to a high-pitched, bass-boosted, sped-up version of Lil Uzi Vert's "The Way Life Goes" with what sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks on vocals, features a slew of trendy-looking safety pin necklaces.

At the onset of the TikTok, a drawing of a safety pin with a heart worked into the design hovers above the following text. "Safety pin meaning. If someone is wearing a safety pin necklace every day, it is usually a promise not to kill themselves. Especially if they have attempted before."

Safety Pin Necklace Meaning #2: Solidarity with immigrants

Vox wrote that safety pins, in a post-Brexit United Kingdom, were being affixed to people's clothing as a sign to immigrants that they would be protected should anyone try to hassle them while they're out and about.

Safety Pin Necklace Meaning #3: General Allyship

The Wisdom Daily contains a first-person narrative safety pin essay. In it, the writer describes the implications they must accept that come with wearing the safety pin: Anyone who is part of a disenfranchised group or is in need can rest assured that they will be assisted by someone wearing a safety pin.

This could be someone who's being discriminated against or bullied. Basically, the safety pin itself or a safety pin necklace is a symbol that the wearer is a helper, ready and willing to assist those in need no matter their struggle, a true ally to all who need it.