👈🏻
backhand index pointing left: light skin tone
Unicode: 1F448 1F3FB
Description
A hand pointing left with a slightly open palm, indicating direction. The skin tone is light.
Group:
People & Body > hand-single-finger
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Neutral, directional. Can be used to highlight, emphasize, or indicate something to the left.
Backstory
The pointing left hand emoji (U+1F448) was introduced in Unicode 6.0 in 2010. The skin tone modifiers (U+1F3FB to U+1F3FF) were added in Unicode 8.0 in 2015, allowing for more diverse representation of skin tones for human-like emojis.
Usage Examples
- To indicate something to the left: '👈🏻 See the details in the previous paragraph.'
- For navigation: '👈🏻 Turn left here.'
- To draw attention: '👈🏻 Important information!'
- In a list: 'Item 1 👈🏻' (though less common than other bullet points, it can be used creatively)
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Commonly used as a pointer or indicator, often leading the eye to text or images on the left.
East Asian culture:
Similar directional use, but can also be used in some contexts for specific gestures or to draw attention to something off-screen to the left.