rightwards hand: light skin tone
Unicode: 1FAF1 1F3FB
Description
An emoji depicting an upward pointing index finger (1FAF1) followed by a light skin tone modifier (1F3FB).
Group:
People & Body > hand-fingers-open
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Typically represents pointing, indicating, or directing attention to something specific. Its emotional impact depends heavily on context.
Backstory
The ☝️ (Index Pointing Up) emoji was introduced in Unicode 6.0 (2010), representing the universal gesture of pointing upwards. The skin tone modifiers (like 1F3FB for light skin tone) were added in Unicode 8.0 (2015) to allow for greater diversity and personalization of human-representing emojis.
Usage Examples
- To direct attention: 'Look ☝️ at the sky!'
- To indicate an item on a list: 'First point ☝️ is...'
- For emphasis: 'This is the most important thing ☝️.'
- To mean 'up' or 'above': 'Scroll ☝️ to see the previous message.'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Commonly used for emphasis, agreement, or to highlight something directly above or in the direction of the point.
East Asian culture:
Similar usage, but in some contexts, directly pointing at someone can be considered rude or accusatory, though less so in digital communication.
General:
Often used for 'up' or 'look here'.