raised back of hand: dark skin tone
Unicode: 1F91A 1F3FF
Description
A waving hand with a dark skin tone, typically showing a greeting or farewell. The hand is often depicted with all five fingers extended and the palm facing forward or slightly to the side.
Group:
People & Body > hand-fingers-open
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Generally conveys friendliness, approachability, and is used to signal a greeting ('hello') or a farewell ('goodbye'). It can also represent acknowledgment or a desire for attention.
Backstory
The waving hand emoji (👋) was introduced in Unicode 6.0 in 2010. The addition of skin tone modifiers (like 🏿 for dark skin) came with Emoji 2.0 (Unicode 8.0) in 2015, allowing for more diverse representation.
Usage Examples
- Greeting someone: 'Hey there! 👋🏿'
- Saying goodbye: 'See you later! 👋🏿'
- Acknowledging someone online: 'Got your message! 👋🏿'
- Waving at a concert: 'Having a great time! 👋🏿'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Widely used for 'hello' and 'goodbye', or to acknowledge someone's presence from a distance.
East Asian culture:
Similar usage, though sometimes a more subtle bow or nod might be preferred in very formal settings. The hand wave is generally universally understood as a greeting.
Other cultures:
While broadly accepted as a greeting, in some cultures, the specific orientation of the hand or fingers might have different connotations, though the general '👋' emoji is mostly harmless.