Smiling Face with Open Hands

A cheerful hug: affection, support, thanks, or encouragement. The sentence around it picks the shade: comfort makes it an embrace, gratitude a warm thank-you, good news a congratulation. On its own it promises no romance.

It squeezes an older online habit into one face. Typed hugs show up online by 1995; MSN Messenger turned the shortcuts ({) and (}) into paired hug figures in 2003, and Gmail animated a two-figure hug in 2008. The Unicode proposal behind 🤗, from 2014, shrank the embrace to a single smiling face, which is why its hands can seem to reach toward you or wave beside the face.

Is 🤗 a hug or jazz hands?

Either; the message and the artwork break the tie. Jazz hands means palms forward and fingers spread, a stage-style “ta-da.” A 2019 emoji-history article recorded that reading for excitement and praise. Facebook and older Google designs curved the hands inward; in 2018 Android 9 turned Google's hands outward, a change described as less hug-like.

Which hug emoji should I use after bad news?

For grief, choose 🫂 or plain words. The grin makes 🤗 brighter than a condolence usually wants. Keep it for encouragement that can carry some cheer, and add a sentence that names your support.