raised hand: dark skin tone
Unicode: 270B 1F3FF
Description
A raised hand, often indicating a greeting or a stop, with a dark skin tone modifier.
Group:
People & Body > hand-fingers-open
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Can convey a sense of greeting like 'hello' or 'goodbye,' an instruction to 'stop' or 'wait,' or simply a raised hand for attention or a vote. The dark skin tone adds specificity to the representation.
Backstory
The 'Raised Hand' emoji (U+270B) was approved as part of Unicode 1.1 in 1993, long before the proliferation of emojis. The skin tone modifier (U+1F3FF for Dark Skin Tone) was added with Unicode 8.0 in 2015, as part of the broader effort to provide more diverse skin tone options for human-depicting emojis.
Usage Examples
- Greeting someone: 'Hey there! ✋🏿'
- Asking to stop: '✋🏿 Wait, let me check.'
- Acknowledging a presence: 'Saw you across the room! ✋🏿'
- Saying goodbye: 'Bye for now! ✋🏿'
- Requesting attention: 'Teacher, I have a question! ✋🏿'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Frequently used for a casual 'hand wave,' 'hi,' or 'bye.' Also often used for 'stop' or 'wait.'
East Asian culture:
Can be used as a greeting, but also to signal a 'stop' or 'refusal.' The dark skin tone adds little cultural nuance beyond its literal meaning.
Global usage:
The raised hand is a widely understood gesture for greeting or stopping, and the skin tone modifier allows for more inclusive representation.