waving hand: medium-light skin tone
Unicode: 1F44B 1F3FC
Description
A waving hand, depicted with a light skin tone. The palm is usually facing forward, and the fingers are slightly apart.
Group:
People & Body > hand-fingers-open
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Typically represents a friendly greeting or farewell, acknowledgment, or a general sense of amiability. Can also be used to signal attention or agreement.
Backstory
The Waving Hand emoji (U+1F44B) was approved as part of Unicode 6.0 in 2010. The skin tone modifier (U+1F3FC) was added in Unicode 8.0 in 2015, allowing for Fitzpatrick scale skin tone variations to be applied to human-like emojis.
Usage Examples
- Greeting someone: 'Hey there! 👋🏼'
- Saying goodbye: 'See you later! 👋🏼'
- Acknowledging a message: 'Got it, thanks! 👋🏼'
- Signaling hello from a distance: 'Over here! 👋🏼'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Widely used for 'hello' or 'goodbye', or to acknowledge someone's presence.
East Asian culture:
Similar usage, but in some contexts, a shallower or quicker wave might be preferred for casual greetings.
Various cultures:
The specific meaning can be subtle depending on the context and the speed/duration of the wave.