woman facepalming: medium-dark skin tone
Unicode: 1F926 1F3FE 200D 2640
Description
A person shrugging, dark skin tone, with the female sign. This emoji depicts someone raising their shoulders and turning out the palms of their hands, conveying a lack of knowledge, indifference, or a lack of concern.
Group:
People & Body > person-gesture
Status:
minimally-qualified
Emotion:
Typically represents uncertainty, confusion, 'I don't know', 'it doesn't matter', or 'what can you do?'. It can also convey a sense of resignation or helplessness.
Backstory
The Shrug emoji (U+1F926) was approved as part of Unicode 9.0 in 2016. The combination with skin tone modifiers (U+1F3FE for dark skin tone) and zero-width joiner (U+200D) to create a female variant (U+2640) allows for greater diversity and representation.
Usage Examples
- When asked a question you don't know the answer to: 'Where did I put my keys? 🤦🏾♀️'
- Expressing indifference: 'Should we go out or stay in tonight? 🤦🏾♀️'
- Reacting to a situation where you feel helpless: 'The internet is down again! 🤦🏾♀️'
- Conveying a lack of concern: 'They can say what they want, 🤦🏾♀️'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Widely understood as a universal gesture for 'I don't know' or apathy. Often used informally in text and social media.
East Asian culture:
Also recognized but might be used less frequently in daily digital communication compared to Western cultures, or might be interpreted with a slightly stronger nuance of helplessness rather than mere indifference.