person in lotus position: medium skin tone
Unicode: 1F9D8 1F3FD
Description
A person with short hair, wearing a white shirt and blue pants, with a medium skin tone, represented as gender-neutral.
Group:
People & Body > person-resting
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Neutral, represents a generic person, can be used to indicate 'someone' or 'a person' without specifying gender or particular attributes beyond skin tone.
Backstory
The 'Person' emoji was introduced in Unicode 6.0 (2010), alongside other diverse human emojis, to provide more options for representing individuals without implied gender. The skin tone modifiers (like 1F3FD for medium skin tone) were added in Unicode 8.0 (2015) to allow for greater inclusivity and representation.
Usage Examples
- Indicating 'a person' in general: 'Every 🧑🏽 should have access to education.'
- Referring to an unspecified individual: 'There's a 🧑🏽 waiting for you at the door.'
- As a placeholder for a generic human: 'The average 🧑🏽 spends hours on their phone daily.'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Often used to represent a generic individual or a placeholder for 'person'. Can be used for general statements about people.
East Asian culture:
Similar usage to Western culture, used to denote a generic individual. Can sometimes be interpreted as a child or young person given the slightly smaller stature of some emoji representations.