White Left-Pointing Triangle

It points left: back, previous, rewind, or plain decoration.

"White" in its official name means outlined, not coloured: the Geometric Shapes block calls hollow shapes white and filled ones black, so ◁ and ◀ are the same arrowhead, outlined and filled. Both come from the same family as ▷, △ and ▽, and they have been in Unicode since 1993, long before emoji joined it.

Many readers meet ◁ as a pointer. On buttons, in menus and in plain-text lists it can stand for "go back" or "previous", the way ▷ stands for "next" or "play". Doubled, ◁◁ reads as rewind or scroll left. Writers also use it as a bullet, or wrap a title as ◁ Chapter 3 ▷ for a bit of decoration.

Because it is a text character, its size and line weight depend on the reader's font. In some fonts it is a thin outline, in others a heavy frame. Don't rely on the exact look.

What does it mean when someone sends ◁?

Usually nothing emotional: it's pointing at something, or dressing up a message.

Read the words around it. Next to "back", "previous" or a date it is a navigation arrow. Framing a name or phrase with ▷ it is decoration, the kind people put in usernames and bios. Standing alone it most often means "look left" or "the one before". It carries no mood of its own, so there is nothing to decode beyond direction.