selfie: medium-dark skin tone
Unicode: 1F933 1F3FE
Description
An emoji depicting a person performing 'shrug' gesture, with 'Type-5' dark skin tone. The person has raised shoulders and open hands, indicating indifference, lack of knowledge, or resignation.
Group:
People & Body > hand-prop
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Typically represents indifference, uncertainty, confusion, resignation, or a lack of caring. It can also convey 'I don't know' or 'It is what it is.'
Backstory
The shrug emoji was introduced in Unicode 9.0 (2016). It is derived from the popular 'shrug' emoticon (e.g., ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯), which pre-dates emoji and was commonly used online to express similar sentiments. The addition of a dedicated emoji provided a more visually direct way to convey this gesture.
Usage Examples
- Expressing uncertainty: 'Where did I put my keys? 🤷🏾♂️'
- Conveying resignation: 'It's raining again, so plans are off 🤷🏾♀️'
- Showing indifference: 'Dinner? 🤷🏾♂️ Whatever works.'
- Admitting lack of knowledge: 'Why did he say that? 🤷🏾♀️'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Widely used to express a lack of knowledge, nonchalance, or to signify 'whatever' in casual conversations.
East Asian culture:
Similar usage to Western culture, often used to convey a casual 'I don't know' or 'I can't help it' in digital communication.