🌀 can also be used to represent anything that is literally spiral-shaped. Because the emoji is drawn as a simple swirling form, people sometimes use it to refer to spiral objects or patterns directly, such as whirlpools, spiral staircases, coils, or swirling designs in art and nature.

Because 🌀 is often used in comics and visual storytelling to represent chaos, dizziness, or a mind spinning out of control, people also use this emoji to express feeling confused, overwhelmed, mentally overloaded, or emotionally caught in a mess. It conveys the sense that thoughts or situations are swirling and hard to sort out.

On some platforms, especially on X using the Twemoji design, 🌀 is rendered in a way that visually resembles a barred spiral galaxy or even a black hole. Because of this appearance, people sometimes use 🌀 to refer to cosmic objects such as galaxies, black holes, or deep-space phenomena, giving the emoji an astronomical or sci-fi tone beyond weather or chaos.