Man: Bald Emoji
U+1F468 U+200D U+1F9B2:bald_man:Skin tonesAbout Man: Bald 👨🦲
Man: Bald () is part of the People & Body group in Unicode. Added in Unicode E11.0. Type on GitHub and Slack to use it. On Discord it's . Click copy above to grab it, paste it anywhere.
Works in iMessage, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, Instagram, Twitter, Gmail, and every app that supports Unicode. Pick a skin tone above to customize it.
Often associated with adult, bald, bro, and 1 more keywords.
Meaning varies across cultures, see cultural notes below.
Scroll down for the full story: meaning, trends, combos, and more.
How it looks
What does it mean?
The bald man emoji is exactly what it looks like: a male-presenting person with a clean-shaven scalp. It arrived in 2018 as part of Unicode's first serious attempt at hair diversity, joining redheads, curly-haired folks, and white-haired people in Emoji 11.0.
But the emoji carries more weight than a simple character description suggests. It exists because Jade Jarvis, who lives with alopecia areata, petitioned Apple for bald representation. Her argument was straightforward: by adding bald emojis, "we could spread awareness and make this sensitive subject more socially acceptable." The Unicode Consortium listened. Jeremy Burge, founder of Emojipedia, authored the formal proposal that added bald alongside the other hair components.
Today people use it for everything from representing themselves (bald by choice or by genetics) to referencing bald celebrities, to the more loaded contexts of medical hair loss from chemotherapy or alopecia. It's a representation emoji first and a personality emoji second.
On social media, 👨🦲 shows up in two main contexts. First, self-representation: bald men using it as their avatar or in bios. Second, jokes and references: tagging friends who shaved their heads, referencing celebrity bald guys, or the perennial "is he losing his hair?" group chat debate.
Emojipedia's blog noted that the bald emojis were among the most discussed additions in iOS 12.1. The female version (👩🦲) got linked to "wig snatched" slang almost immediately, giving it outsized popularity in stan Twitter. The male version stayed closer to literal use, representing bald men or men who shave their heads.
In professional settings like LinkedIn, people occasionally use it in posts about confidence, self-acceptance, or career identity, leaning on the Wharton research that frames baldness as a dominance signal.
It represents a male person with a bald or shaved head. People use it for self-representation, referencing bald friends or celebrities, joking about hair loss, or raising awareness about medical conditions like alopecia and chemotherapy-related hair loss.
No. The emoji represents a bald or shaved-head person and has no political or subcultural association built into it. Like all emojis, context determines meaning, but the design and intent are neutral.
What it means from...
If your crush sends you 👨🦲, they're probably either describing themselves, teasing you about your hairline, or making a joke about a mutual acquaintance. It's not a romantic emoji by any stretch. If someone sends it about themselves with a nervous tone, they might be testing how you feel about their baldness.
Between partners, this is usually either self-referential ("just buzzed it all off 👨🦲") or gentle teasing ("you're giving 👨🦲 energy lately"). It can also show up in conversations about aging and acceptance, which is completely normal relationship territory.
Pure roasting material. Friends use this to tag someone going bald, react to a friend's new shaved head, or debate whether someone should just "take the plunge." The group chat council on whether to shave is a modern ritual, and 👨🦲 is its symbol.
Family members often use it when comparing genetics ("you're getting grandpa's 👨🦲 genes") or reacting to someone in the family shaving their head. For families dealing with cancer treatment, it can be a gentle way to acknowledge what's happening without heavy words.
Rare in professional settings unless someone's making a lighthearted comment about their own appearance. In Slack bios, some bald professionals use it as a self-deprecating flex. Research shows bald men are perceived as more dominant in business, so leaning into it is a power move.
On social media, strangers use it in comment sections when a bald celebrity is mentioned, in memes about hair loss, or in before-and-after transformation posts. It's descriptive, not judgmental, when used by strangers.
Flirty or friendly?
This is almost never flirty. It's a descriptive, representation emoji. If someone sends 👨🦲 in a romantic context, they're probably referencing their own appearance or making a joke, not sending a coded signal. The only flirty adjacent use is the "bald confidence" angle, where someone owns their look and the emoji becomes shorthand for self-assuredness.
Emoji combos
Origin story
The bald emoji exists because a woman with alopecia areata decided it should. In 2017, Jade Jarvis launched a Change.org petition asking Apple for bald emoji representation. She argued that millions of people living with hair loss had no way to see themselves in the emoji keyboard. The petition was modest in scale (around 180 signatures) but it landed at the right time.
Jeremy Burge, founder of Emojipedia, had already been documenting the demand for hair diversity. Redhead emojis were one of the most requested additions to the keyboard for years. Burge authored the formal Unicode proposal that bundled four new hair components together: red (🦰), curly (🦱), white (🦳), and bald (🦲). Rather than adding separate full-person emojis for each hairstyle (which would have created dozens of new characters), the proposal used ZWJ sequences. A bald man is 👨 + ZWJ + 🦲, a modular approach that kept the emoji count manageable.
Emoji 11.0 shipped in June 2018 with all four hair types. The hair diversity update was one of the most covered emoji releases in years, with outlets like Today.com and Refinery29 running features on the new additions.
Added in Emoji 11.0 (June 2018). Technically a ZWJ (Zero Width Joiner) sequence combining 👨 Man () + ZWJ () + 🦲 Bald (). Part of a hair diversity update that also added red hair (🦰), curly hair (🦱), and white hair (🦳) components. The bald component can combine with 👨, 👩, or 🧑 to create gendered and gender-neutral bald variants. Supports five Fitzpatrick skin tone modifiers.
Design history
- 2017Jade Jarvis petitions Apple for bald emoji representation↗
- 2017Jeremy Burge authors Unicode proposal for hair component emojis↗
- 2018Emoji 11.0 released with bald, red, curly, and white hair components (June)↗
- 2018iOS 12.1 adds 👨🦲 to Apple keyboards, bald becomes one of the most discussed new emojis↗
- 2019Gender-neutral 🧑🦲 Person: Bald added in Emoji 12.1
- 2022Will Smith–Chris Rock Oscars incident brings alopecia and baldness representation into global conversation↗
Around the world
Baldness carries different weight in different cultures. In much of the West, a shaved head signals either confidence or aging, depending on whether it looks intentional. A 2012 Wharton study by Albert Mannes found shaved-head men were perceived as 13% more dominant and 6% more confident, but also looked nearly four years older and were rated lower on attractiveness.
In Buddhist traditions, shaving the head is a spiritual act representing renunciation of worldly attachments. Monks across Thailand, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka shave their heads as part of ordination. In these contexts, the bald emoji can carry spiritual significance rather than personal style.
In Black American culture, the clean-shaved head is a powerful aesthetic choice. Icons like Michael Jordan, Samuel L. Jackson, and Dwayne Johnson helped establish the look as a marker of strength and cool. The cultural meaning is less about hair loss and more about intentional presentation.
September 13 is National Bald is Beautiful Day in the United States, a day meant to combat stigma around hair loss and celebrate baldness as an identity rather than a deficit.
A woman named Jade Jarvis, who has alopecia areata, petitioned Apple for bald representation. Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia authored the formal Unicode proposal. The goal was to make people with hair loss feel represented in the emoji keyboard.
It's complicated. A Wharton study found shaved-head men were rated as 13% more dominant and 6% more confident, but also looked nearly 4 years older and scored lower on attractiveness scales. The key finding was that fully shaving beats visible thinning.
Popularity ranking
Who uses it?
Often confused with
Person: Bald (🧑🦲) is the gender-neutral version, added a year later in Emoji 12.1 (2019). 👨🦲 specifically shows a male-presenting person. If gender isn't relevant, 🧑🦲 is the more inclusive choice.
Person: Bald (🧑🦲) is the gender-neutral version, added a year later in Emoji 12.1 (2019). 👨🦲 specifically shows a male-presenting person. If gender isn't relevant, 🧑🦲 is the more inclusive choice.
Woman: Bald (👩🦲) represents a female-presenting bald person. On stan Twitter, it got connected to 'wig snatched' slang almost immediately, giving it a different cultural life than the male version.
Woman: Bald (👩🦲) represents a female-presenting bald person. On stan Twitter, it got connected to 'wig snatched' slang almost immediately, giving it a different cultural life than the male version.
👨🦲 specifically shows a male-presenting bald person. 🧑🦲 is the gender-neutral version added in Emoji 12.1 (2019). Use 🧑🦲 when gender isn't relevant or when you want to be more inclusive.
Do's and don'ts
- ✗Use it to mock someone's involuntary hair loss without their consent
- ✗Assume someone is comfortable joking about their baldness
- ✗Use it dismissively toward people with medical hair loss conditions
- ✗Send it unprompted to someone sensitive about their hair
Not inherently. It was created specifically for representation after advocacy from the alopecia community. But context matters. Using it to mock someone's involuntary hair loss without their consent crosses a line. Used positively or descriptively, it's fine.
Caption ideas
Aesthetic sets
Fun facts
- •The bald emoji exists partly because of a Change.org petition by Jade Jarvis, who has alopecia areata. Her campaign for representation led to the Unicode Consortium including bald in the Emoji 11.0 hair diversity update.
- •When iOS 12.1 launched with the bald emojis, Emojipedia reported that the female bald variant (👩🦲) got immediately linked to 'wig snatched' slang on stan Twitter, giving it more cultural traction than anyone expected.
- •Albert Mannes, the Wharton researcher behind the bald-dominance study, said his own hair loss in his early thirties inspired the research. He noticed people became 'stand-offish and even deferential' after he shaved his head.
- •The 2022 Oscars slap incident, where Will Smith struck Chris Rock over a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head (she has alopecia), became the most viral moment in Academy Awards history and put alopecia awareness on the front page of every major outlet.
Common misinterpretations
- •Some people use 👨🦲 thinking it represents an older man or a monk, when it's specifically about baldness. Age and spirituality aren't the intended meaning, though cultural context can shift it.
- •In some contexts, sending 👨🦲 to someone who's losing their hair can feel passive-aggressive rather than supportive, especially if they haven't embraced it yet.
In pop culture
- •The Jeff Bezos / Lex Luthor comparison became a recurring internet meme, especially after Bezos was filmed testing robotic arms in 2022. The bald billionaire-to-supervillain pipeline is well documented online.
- •Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson helped redefine bald masculinity in Hollywood. His transition from wrestling to film made the shaved head an aspirational look rather than a sign of aging.
- •The Will Smith–Chris Rock Oscars incident in March 2022 made alopecia a household topic overnight. Rock's G.I. Jane joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head triggered the most discussed moment in Oscar history.
- •Patrick Stewart famously embraced baldness decades before it became mainstream cool. When Gene Roddenberry was asked if audiences would accept a bald starship captain, his answer: "By the 24th century, no one will care."
Trivia
For developers
- •This is a ZWJ sequence: (Man) + (ZWJ) + (Bald). Platforms that don't support the sequence will display the components separately: 👨🦲.
- •Shortcodes: (GitHub), (Slack), (Discord). CLDR: .
- •Skin tone modifier goes on the person component, not the hair: + (light skin) + + . The 🦲 component itself is never skin-toned.
- •The bald component () is an emoji component, not a standalone emoji in most contexts. It was designed to combine with person bases (👨, 👩, 🧑) rather than be used alone.
June 2018, as part of Emoji 11.0. It was part of a hair diversity update that also added red, curly, and white hair emojis. The gender-neutral version (🧑🦲) followed in 2019.
See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.
What does 👨🦲 represent to you?
Select all that apply
- Man: Bald Emoji (emojipedia.org)
- Bald Emojis Released After Alopecia Campaign (belgraviacentre.com)
- Most Discussed New Emojis of iOS 12.1 (blog.emojipedia.org)
- 157 New Emojis in the 2018 Emoji List (blog.emojipedia.org)
- Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Why Shaved Heads Lead the Pack (knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu)
- Shorn Scalps and Perceptions of Male Dominance - Albert E. Mannes (gwern.net)
- Chris Rock–Will Smith slapping incident (en.wikipedia.org)
- Jeff Bezos's Resemblance to Lex Luthor (jacobin.com)
- National Bald is Beautiful Day (nationaltoday.com)
- Where is the bald/hair loss emoji?! - Change.org petition (change.org)
- Redheads: Is This It? - Emojipedia Blog (blog.emojipedia.org)
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