🫶🏾
heart hands: medium-dark skin tone
Unicode: 1FAF6 1F3FE
Description
A person with hand over mouth, a gesture of surprise, shock, or secrecy. The 1F3FE modifier indicates a medium-dark skin tone.
Group:
People & Body > hands
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Typically represents shock, surprise, embarrassment, shyness, or keeping a secret. Can also be used to indicate a gasp or a moment of awe.
Backstory
This emoji was introduced in Unicode 14.0 (2021) as 'Face with Hand Over Mouth'. It quickly gained popularity as a versatile reaction emoji for moments of surprise, embarrassment, or when one is trying to hold back a comment or laugh. The skin tone modifier allows for greater representation.
Usage Examples
- Expressing surprise: 'I can't believe it! 🫢🏾'
- Holding back laughter: 'That was so funny, I almost lost it 🫢🏾'
- Admitting embarrassment: 'Oops, I forgot to turn off the lights 🫢🏾'
- Reacting to shocking news: 'Did you hear what happened? 🫢🏾'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Commonly used to express surprise or a moment of 'oops' or 'oh wow'.
East Asian culture:
Can be associated with shyness or modesty, besides surprise.