Thumbs Up Emoji

Thumbs Up Emoji
Thumbs Up Emoji PNG

The real invasion of emoji in our world occurred in the 1990s in Japan. Even the term “emoji” itself was coined in that country. In addition to emotions, symbols unrelated to people’s faces were added, such as animals, objects, symbols, and gestures.

No wonder that to own all these hundreds of funny, funny, sad and other funny faces and gestures is not so easy as it seems at first sight. While some smileys are intuitively understandable, others are not at all obvious, both in meaning and application.

One such example for many can be considered hand emoticons. The question of interpretations here can be quite extensive. In this article we are going to have a closer look on one of the gestures emoji, Thumbs Up.

Description

Thumbs Up Emoji description

This emoji looks like a fist with the thumb pointing up. The hand is horizontal and pointing to the right, palm in.  The thumbs up emoji has been assigned the code U+1F44D and was added to the People and Body section of Unicode 6.0 in 2010. To copy and paste the Thumbs Up emoticon in HTML, use the code 👍 . This emoji can have different skin tones, see the options below. The Thumbs Up emoticon is already quite established, so it should have support on most devices.

Meaning

thumbs up

Thumbs Up is quite a popular gesture in social media. It acts as a “like” – a button indicating that the user approves of the post. Also this emoji is used in personal correspondence and expresses agreement with a proposal, idea, etc.

The thumbs up emoticon signifies an approving gesture that has an age-old cultural tradition. In most cases, it is used to express approval of other people’s actions or statements. In email correspondence, this gesture can take on a wide range of positive meanings, such as “Great!”, “Cool!”, “I like”, “Good”, “Support”. This emoticon, also known as the “yes” emoticon, is used to express general satisfaction.

It can also be used sarcastically to indicate that something is not really good.

Thumbs Up is a seemingly ordinary gesture of approval accepted in European culture. But when transferred to another cultural context, the meaning of the emoji changes to the exact opposite. For example, the Arabs, Turks and Greeks consider a raised thumb to be a phallic symbol and an insult. So be careful with gestures in foreign countries.

Controversies

like emoji

The thumbs up emoji was deemed obsolete by 24 percent of respondents to a 2021 Perspectus Global survey. It took the top spot in the ranking. The study involved 2,000 British residents between the ages of 16 and 29.

As you can see, the harmless emoji is not to everyone’s liking. Young employees consider Thumbs Up a sign of passive aggression if they see it in work chats. A heated discussion broke out on Reddit over this very issue, after which users from Generation Z generally agreed that Thumbs Up should be banned for use in workgroups.

The perception of this emoji depends entirely on age. For older people, it’s a common approving gesture, while Generation Z doesn’t use it at all, except in a sarcastic context.

But in the digital community, Thumbs up has many defenders. They like that this emoji is neutral and suitable for a wide range of situations – any kind of approval.

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