palm down hand: medium-light skin tone
Unicode: 1FAF3 1F3FC
Description
A hand with its palm facing the viewer and fingers slightly outstretched, with the skin tone modifier indicating a light-medium skin tone.
Group:
People & Body > hand-fingers-open
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Neutral, often used to depict an open hand, a stop gesture, or a high five. The emotional context depends heavily on the surrounding text and other emojis.
Backstory
The 🖐️ (hand with fingers splayed) emoji was introduced in Unicode 6.0 (2010). The 🏻 (light-medium skin tone modifier) was added later in Unicode 8.0 (2015), allowing users to customize the skin tone of various human-related emojis.
Usage Examples
- To indicate 'stop': '🖐🏻 Stop right there!'
- As part of a wave: '👋🏻🖐🏻 Hello!'
- To represent an open hand: 'Open your hand please 🖐🏻'
- Part of a high five (often with another hand emoji): 'High five! 🙌🏻🖐🏻'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Can represent a 'stop' gesture, a 'talk to the hand' dismissal, or part of a wave. In some contexts, it can be a high-five gesture (🖐️).
East Asian culture:
Similar uses, but less frequently used for 'talk to the hand'. More commonly seen in conjunction with other gestures or for emphasis.