man shrugging: medium-dark skin tone
Unicode: 1F937 1F3FE 200D 2642 FE0F
Description
A man gesturing 'hand over mouth' with dark skin tone. The man is depicted raising a hand to his face, often covering his mouth or looking thoughtful/surprised.
Group:
People & Body > person-gesture
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Can convey surprise, shock, embarrassment, discretion, or amusement, depending on the context. It can also imply being speechless or trying to suppress laughter or a reaction.
Backstory
This emoji is a combination of several Unicode characters: 'person gesturing hand over mouth' (U+1F937), 'dark skin tone' (U+1F3FE), 'zero width joiner' (U+200D), 'male sign' (U+2642), and 'variation selector-16' (U+FE0F). The base emoji (person gesturing hand over mouth) was introduced in Unicode 9.0 (2016), with gender and skin tone variations added to provide more inclusive representation.
Usage Examples
- Expressing surprise: 'Did you see that?! 😮💨 (man gesturing hand over mouth: dark skin tone)'
- Showing embarrassment: 'I can't believe I said that 😮💨 (man gesturing hand over mouth: dark skin tone)'
- Suppressing laughter: 'This meme is too funny 😮💨 (man gesturing hand over mouth: dark skin tone)'
- Indicating a secret: 'Shhh, it's our little secret 🤫 but represented as 😮💨 (man gesturing hand over mouth: dark skin tone)'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Often used to express being 'shook' or surprised, or to indicate keeping a secret. Also used when suppressing a laugh or a strong reaction.
East Asian culture:
Can represent shyness, embarrassment, or humility. Sometimes used to show polite amusement.