Person Facepalming

Unicode lists 🤦 Person Facepalming among the gesturing people in the People & Body group. In practice it comes up around again, bewilder, disbelief and exasperation. The keyword list continues with facepalm, no, not and oh.

🤦 fits messaging apps, social networks and anywhere a short visual cue helps. On SmileyZone it is filed under Gestures and Hands. The character has been part of the standard since 2016 (Emoji 3.0). Its code point is U+1F926. The emoji also comes in 5 skin tone variants, listed in the sidebar.

• A single 🤦 is often enough to set the tone.
• Fits messages about again, bewilder, disbelief and exasperation.
• Often seen near 🙇‍♀️ Woman Bowing, 🙇🏻‍♀️ Woman Bowing: Light Skin Tone and 🤦🏻 Person Facepalming: Light Skin Tone.

The facepalm as an image of exasperation spread through internet forums in the 2000s, particularly via a still from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Unicode adopted the gesture in 2016.

It neatly illustrates that emoji follow language rather than the other way round: first came the word and the image, then the sign.

• 🤦🤷 – Person Facepalming and Person Shrugging
• 🤦🙇‍♂️ – Person Facepalming with Man Bowing
• 🤦🙇‍♀️ – Person Facepalming plus Woman Bowing
• 🤦🙇 – Person Facepalming and Person Bowing

Easy to mix up with 🙇‍♀️ Woman Bowing, 🙇🏻‍♀️ Woman Bowing: Light Skin Tone or 🤦🏻 Person Facepalming: Light Skin Tone. They sit in the same Unicode subgroup and look similar at small sizes, so it is worth checking the name before sending.