☝🏽
index pointing up: medium skin tone
Unicode: 261D 1F3FD
Description
A white up-pointing index finger with a medium skin tone.
Group:
People & Body > hand-single-finger
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Neutral, directional, typically used to point out something or someone.
Backstory
The white up-pointing index finger (pointing hand) is a long-standing symbol. The skin tone modifiers (like 1F3FD for medium skin tone) were added later as part of Unicode 8.0 (2015) to allow for more diverse representation of human emojis.
Usage Examples
- Pointing to a message: 'Look at this! ☝🏽'
- Indicating something above: 'It's up there ☝🏽'
- Emphasizing a point: 'One crucial thing to remember ☝🏽'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Commonly used to indicate direction, agreement, or to highlight text/items.
East Asian culture:
Similar usage, often used to point at messages or emphasize a point.