man facepalming: light skin tone
Unicode: 1F926 1F3FB 200D 2642 FE0F
Description
A man raising a hand in a 'facepalm' gesture, with light skin tone. His hand covers his face, often indicating embarrassment, exasperation, or disbelief.
Group:
People & Body > person-gesture
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Typically represents embarrassment, frustration, disbelief, exasperation, shame, or cognitive dissonance.
Backstory
The facepalm gesture itself has a long history as a non-verbal cue for various negative emotions. The emoji was introduced in Unicode 9.0 (2016) as a way to universally convey this popular Internet meme and common reaction digitally. It quickly became a staple for expressing cringeworthy moments.
Usage Examples
- Responding to a foolish statement: 'Did they really just say that? 🤦🏻♂️'
- Expressing embarrassment for someone else: 'Watching him try to dance... 🤦🏻♂️'
- Showing exasperation at a situation: 'Another error message. 🤦🏻♂️'
- Reacting to a bad joke: 'That pun was terrible. 🤦🏻♂️'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Widely understood to convey a sense of 'I can't believe this,' 'Oh no,' or 'Why me?' in response to something foolish or frustrating.
East Asian culture:
Similar interpretation, often used to express a feeling of awkwardness or second-hand embarrassment.