crossed fingers: light skin tone
Unicode: 1F91E 1F3FB
Description
A face with a hand over its mouth, depicting a gesture of surprise, shock, or disbelief; the hand has a light skin tone.
Group:
People & Body > hand-fingers-partial
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Typically represents surprise, shock, disbelief, astonishment, or sometimes a slight embarrassment or 'oops' moment.
Backstory
This emoji was introduced in Unicode 9.0 (2016) as 'Face With Hand Over Mouth'. It quickly became popular for expressing various forms of surprise and disbelief in digital conversations, mirroring a common human non-verbal reaction.
Usage Examples
- Expressing surprise: 'Did you see that? 🤭'
- Reacting to unexpected news: 'Wait, really?! 🤭'
- Sharing a secret: 'Don't tell anyone, but...🤭'
- Embarrassment: 'Oops, I didn't mean to say that 🤭'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Often used to express genuine surprise, mild shock, or sometimes as a playful 'gossip' or 'secret' gesture.
East Asian culture:
Can be used similarly, but also to convey modesty or discretion, or a polite reaction to unexpected news.