Hand With Index Finger And Thumb Crossed Emoji

A hand with the index finger and thumb crossed to form a tiny heart shape, with the remaining fingers tucked. This is the Korean finger heart, a gesture that exploded out of South Korean pop culture and into global use through K-pop.

The finger heart was first popularized by actress Kim Hye-soo around 2010 and then by Infinite's Nam Woohyun in the K-pop community in 2011. By the mid-2010s, every K-pop idol was doing it on camera: BTS, BLACKPINK, TWICE, EXO, and thousands of other artists. The gesture traveled with the Korean Wave (Hallyu) and is now recognized worldwide.

Unicode added it in 2021 as U+1FAF0U+1FAF0 under the deliberately generic name HAND WITH INDEX FINGER AND THUMB CROSSED. The neutral naming lets it serve as both the Korean finger heart and a generic "money" or "snapping" gesture depending on context. The actual Unicode proposal (L2/19-327) documents both interpretations.

🫰 is K-pop's emoji. On Twitter/X, Instagram, and Weverse (the K-pop fan platform), it accompanies fan messages to idols, fancam edits, and concert recaps. BTS's ARMY, BLACKPINK's Blinks, and TWICE's ONCE use it constantly in interactions with artists.

Outside K-pop, 🫰 is used as a quick, cute way to express love or affection. It's lighter than ❤️ and more specific than 🤟. The finger heart gesture feels more casual and playful than a full heart, which is why it works in contexts where a heart emoji might feel too heavy.

In some Western contexts, the gesture reads as a "money" snap (rubbing thumb and index finger together). This secondary meaning appears in financial and business contexts but is far less common than the Korean heart interpretation.

The finger heart started in South Korea in the early 2010s. The gesture involves crossing the index finger over the thumb to form a miniature heart shape, while keeping the other fingers in a fist.

Actress Kim Hye-soo is most commonly credited with popularizing it around 2010, when she posed with it alongside singer Shin Sung-woo during the MBC drama Home Sweet Home. K-pop idol Nam Woohyun of Infinite mainstreamed it within the K-pop community in 2011. G-Dragon (BIGBANG) also appears doing the gesture in childhood photos, suggesting it existed informally before celebrity adoption.

The gesture spread globally through the Korean Wave. As BTS, BLACKPINK, and other K-pop acts achieved international fame in the mid-to-late 2010s, their fans adopted the finger heart. It now appears in selfies, fan meetings, and social media posts worldwide.

Unicode approved it in 2021 as part of Unicode 14.0. The proposal document (L2/19-327) was submitted in 2019 and acknowledged both the Korean heart meaning and the Western money/snapping interpretation. The generic name HAND WITH INDEX FINGER AND THUMB CROSSEDHAND WITH INDEX FINGER AND THUMB CROSSED was chosen to accommodate both readings.

KOREA NOW produced a video explaining the gesture's origin and cultural significance, documenting its spread from South Korean drama sets to global K-pop fandom.

Approved in Unicode 14.0 (2021) as U+1FAF0U+1FAF0 HAND WITH INDEX FINGER AND THUMB CROSSED. Added to Emoji 14.0. Part of the People & Body category, hand-fingers-partial subcategory. CLDR short name: "hand with index finger and thumb crossed." Keywords: heart, index, Korean, love, snap, thumb. Supports skin tone modifiers.

1. 2010Actress Kim Hye-soo popularizes the finger heart during MBC drama filming↗
2. 2011K-pop idol Nam Woohyun (Infinite) brings it into mainstream K-pop fan culture
3. 2019Unicode proposal L2/19-327 submitted for HAND WITH INDEX FINGER AND THUMB CROSSED↗
4. 2021Approved in Unicode 14.0 as U+1FAF0↗
5. 2022Available on iOS 15.4, Android 12L

In South Korea, the finger heart (손가락 하트, songarak hateu) is ubiquitous. It appears in everyday interactions, celebrity fan meetings, advertisements, and political campaigns. Korean politicians pose with it. It's as natural as waving. The gesture is sometimes called the "Timid V" (소심한 V) by older Koreans who knew it before K-pop globalized the name.

In China, the gesture entered around 2010 through the Korean Wave and is called 比心 (bǐxīn). It became so popular that almost all young Chinese people recognize it. The Language Log at UPenn notes that 比心 is still such a new word that major translation services can't render it correctly.

In Japan, the gesture arrived around 2017, later than China, also carried by K-pop and K-drama popularity.

In Western countries, the same gesture can be read as "money" (rubbing thumb and index finger together, meaning "pay up" or "this costs money"). This secondary interpretation exists but is fading as K-pop's cultural influence grows. Benedict Cumberbatch did finger hearts for Korean fans during his 2016 Doctor Strange promotional tour, and US Olympians picked it up at PyeongChang 2018.

The gesture could be confused with 🤞 crossed fingers in cultures where that means luck, but the hand positions are different enough to distinguish at normal size.

• •Kim Hye-soo is most commonly credited with popularizing the finger heart around 2010. K-pop idol Nam Woohyun (Infinite) brought it into mainstream fan culture in 2011. G-Dragon (BIGBANG) appears doing the gesture in childhood photos, predating both.
• •The Unicode proposal (L2/19-327) submitted in 2019 documents both the Korean heart meaning and the Western money/snapping interpretation. The generic name was chosen to serve both cultures.
• •The finger heart is so embedded in Korean culture that politicians use it in campaign photos, crossing over from entertainment into governance.
• •In the 1990s, the same gesture was called the "Timid V" (소심한 V) in South Korea. The MZ generation rebranded it as the "finger heart" in the 2000s, and K-pop globalized that name.
• •🫰 is the only emoji in Unicode whose primary meaning differs fundamentally between East Asian and Western interpretations. In Korea and Japan: love. In the US and Europe: money (the "pay me" snap). Same hand position, opposite emotional registers.
• •BTS's ARMY fandom adopted 🫰 immediately on release, pairing it with 💜 (BTS's signature purple). Within weeks of iOS support in March 2022, the combo appeared in millions of stan tweets, concert lightstick photos, and fan art captions.

• •In Western business contexts, 🫰 can be read as a 'money' gesture (rubbing thumb and index finger). If your audience isn't K-pop-aware, they might think you're talking about payment rather than love.
• •Confusing 🫰 with 🤞 at small sizes. The gestures look similar when emojis render small, but the meanings (love vs. luck) are completely different.

• •KOREA NOW's explainer video "What is the finger heart?" traces the gesture from its Korean origins through K-pop adoption to global spread, featuring examples of celebrities doing it.
• •BTS members regularly flash the finger heart at fan meetings, concerts, and in Weverse posts. The gesture became so associated with K-pop fan culture that when Unicode announced the emoji in 2021, K-pop news outlets like GizGuide covered it as a fandom milestone.
• •Cathay Pacific airline published a feature titled "Why Korean finger hearts are taking the world by storm" tracing the gesture's journey from K-drama sets to international airports, documenting how the Korean Wave carries cultural gestures alongside music and film.
• •South Korean politicians adopted the finger heart for campaign photos, making it one of the rare gestures that crosses from pop culture into political communication within the same country.

• •U+1FAF0U+1FAF0. Supports skin tone modifiers.
• •On Slack: :hand_with_index_finger_and_thumb_crossed::hand_with_index_finger_and_thumb_crossed:. Long shortcode. Some platforms use :finger_heart::finger_heart: as an alias.
• •This emoji requires iOS 15.4+, Android 12L+. Older devices will show a square. Consider a ❤️ fallback.
• •In the Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs block. If building emoji pickers for Korean audiences, consider placing this near heart emojis rather than in the hand gesture section.

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