🤗 is a happy yellow face with two hands held out at its sides. It came in with Unicode 8.0 in 2015 under the name “hugging face,” and many people still call it the hug emoji even though its official name is now “smiling face with open hands.” It is also the namesake of Hugging Face, the AI and open-source company, whose logo is this emoji. The core idea is warmth that is offered rather than demanded: “come here,” “welcome,” “I’m with you.”
How it’s used
- Comfort: “Sounds like a rough day. Sending hugs 🤗”
- Welcome: “So glad you’re here 🤗”
- Reunion: “It’s been forever, come here 🤗”
- Encouragement: “You’ve got this 🤗”
- Surprise: “Ta-da, I made you something 🤗”
For an actual embrace there is also 🫂 (people hugging), which carries more weight when someone is hurting. 🤗 shows a face with its arms open, so it feels warm and welcoming rather than physical. 🥰 (smiling face with hearts) leans toward love and affection; 🤗 leans toward friendly care.
Korea, Japan and the English-speaking world
In English, 🤗 is simply “hugs.” “Sending hugs 🤗” and “Welcome back 🤗” are the standard uses, and among family and friends it passes without comment. Because the hands spread out sideways, a good share of people also read it as jazz hands, a cheerful “ta-da,” and sometimes as a shrug.
In Korea, where hugging isn’t an everyday greeting, it tends to mean a figurative “토닥토닥” (a comforting pat). Typing “힘내🤗” to a friend who has confided in you works well, and so does greeting a new junior. Between partners or family it can be a literal wish to hug.
In Japan, hugs aren’t a normal greeting either, so ハグ sounds like a borrowed word, and the emoji appears with onomatopoeia such as ぎゅー🤗. Couples and fans use it to say “I want to hug you” or “I’m cheering for you.” It is rarely used in work conversations.
Where it gets misread
- The outstretched hands can look like a shrug (🤷) or a “ta-da.” If you mean comfort, say so in words.
- Sent repeatedly to someone you don’t know well, it can come across as a hint of physical closeness.
- In front of serious grief or loss it may feel flippant. Unless you’re close, lead with a sincere message.
- It isn’t 🤭 (face with hand over mouth); there the hand is on the mouth, not stretched outward.
Design differences by platform
All four place two open hands beside a yellow smiling face. They differ in the size and angle of the hands and in the detail of the fingers. Apple’s hands sit close to the face and fan out in a balanced way; Google’s Noto has a simpler, softer drawing. Microsoft’s Fluent is dimensional, and Samsung is broadly similar. How far out the hands reach nudges the feeling between “hug” and “ta-da.”
