woman facepalming: dark skin tone
Unicode: 1F926 1F3FF 200D 2640
Description
A person with a hand over their mouth, indicating disbelief or embarrassment, with various skin tones. This specific sequence includes a female sign (2640), indicating a woman.
Group:
People & Body > person-gesture
Status:
minimally-qualified
Emotion:
Typically represents shock, disbelief, surprise, gossip, secrecy, or embarrassment. The hand over the mouth suggests an attempt to hide a reaction or share a secret.
Backstory
The 'Person With Hand Over Mouth' emoji (1F926) was approved as part of Unicode 9.0 in 2016. The addition of skin tone modifiers (1F3FF for dark skin tone) and zero-width joiners (200D) with gender signs (2640 for female) allows for more specific representations. This particular combination specifies a dark-skinned woman.
Usage Examples
- Reacting to surprising news: 'Did you hear what happened? 🤫👩🏿🦱'
- Expressing disbelief: 'No way that's true! 🤭👩🏿🦱'
- Sharing a secret: 'Lean in, I have something to tell you… 🤭👩🏿🦱'
- Embarrassment: 'I can't believe I just said that! 🫣👩🏿🦱'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Often used to express 'oops' moments, to share juicy gossip, or to feign innocence after a surprising revelation.
East Asian culture:
Can be used similarly for surprise or embarrassment, but might also imply being speechless or caught off guard.