older person: dark skin tone
Unicode: 1F9D3 1F3FF
Description
An old person emoji, characterized by a grey or white-haired head, often bald or balding, with wrinkles to denote age. This particular variant has dark skin tone.
Group:
People & Body > person
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Typically represents age, wisdom, experience, or sometimes frailty. Can be used respectfully or to indicate someone is 'old-fashioned' depending on context.
Backstory
The 'Old Person' emoji (without specific gender) was introduced in Unicode 9.0 (2016) to provide a more inclusive representation of age. The skin tone modifiers, like Light Skin Tone (1F3FB) to Dark Skin Tone (1F3FF), were introduced with Unicode 8.0 (2015), allowing users to specify the ethnicity of human-like emojis.
Usage Examples
- Referring to an older relative: 'Visiting my grandma this weekend! 👵🏿👴🏿'
- Talking about wisdom: 'He's got so much experience, truly a wise old soul 👴🏿'
- Commenting on someone's age in a playful way: 'Look at you, getting all mature 👴🏿'
- Representing an elderly character in a story or conversation: 'The old man walked slowly down the path 👴🏿'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Often used to represent grandparents, elderly individuals, or in humorous contexts about aging.
East Asian culture:
May be used more formally to show respect for elders, or in similar contexts to Western culture for family members.