Man: White Hair Emoji
U+1F468 U+200D U+1F9B3:white_haired_man:Skin tonesAbout Man: White Hair π¨βπ¦³
Man: White Hair () 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, bro, man, 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?
A man with white or gray hair. Not necessarily old. That distinction matters: π¨β𦳠represents someone with white hair specifically, while π΄ represents an elderly man regardless of hair color. A 25-year-old who went prematurely gray uses this emoji. So does someone referring to Anderson Cooper, George Clooney, or their dad.
Added in Emoji 11.0 in 2018 as part of a major push for hair diversity, this emoji was born from a proposal by Jeremy Burge, founder of Emojipedia. He argued that emoji people all looked the same: dark hair, no variation. His proposal added four hair components to the emoji standard: π¦° red, 𦱠curly, 𦳠white, and 𦲠bald. Each could be combined with person emojis via ZWJ sequences to create π¨βπ¦³, π©βπ¦³, π§βπ¦³, and their skin-toned variants.
The result was a more realistic emoji keyboard. Before 2018, if you had gray hair and wanted to represent yourself in emoji, your only option was π΄, which coded you as elderly regardless of your actual age. π¨β𦳠fixed that.
People use π¨β𦳠in three main ways. First, literal self-representation: men with gray or white hair use it in bios, profiles, and messages as their go-to person emoji. Second, referring to older male relatives or public figures ("my dad π¨β𦳠just learned how to use TikTok"). Third, the "silver fox" context: on dating-adjacent social media, π¨β𦳠gets paired with π₯ or π to signal attraction to distinguished-looking older men.
On TikTok, the "silver fox" trend has turned gray hair from a sign of aging into a style statement. Content creators post transformation videos of men embracing their gray, and the comments are full of π¨βπ¦³π₯ combinations. The emoji has essentially become the avatar for the "gray is attractive" movement.
It represents a man with white or gray hair. It's used for self-representation, describing someone, complimenting silver foxes, or referencing older male relatives. Unlike π΄, it doesn't imply advanced age, just hair color.
What it means from...
If someone sends π¨β𦳠about you, they're calling you a silver fox. It's a compliment. They find the gray hair attractive, not old. If they send it about themselves, they're either joking about premature graying or being self-deprecating. Either way, telling them they look good is the move.
Between partners, π¨β𦳠is either playful ribbing ("you found another gray hair") or affectionate ("my silver fox π"). In longer relationships, it's also used to reference growing old together: "us in 30 years: π¨βπ¦³π©βπ¦³." Sweet, not sad.
Among friends, this is almost always teasing. Someone found a gray hair? They're getting π¨β𦳠in the group chat for the next week. It's the emoji version of pointing and saying "you're getting old" while knowing full well you all are.
Used to refer to dad, uncle, or grandpa. "π¨β𦳠says dinner is at 6" is shorthand in family chats. It's descriptive, not disrespectful. The emoji just describes what the person looks like.
In work contexts, π¨β𦳠might reference a senior colleague or boss. It's descriptive and generally safe, but be careful using it in messages that could be seen as ageist. "The π¨β𦳠in accounting" is fine. "Another meeting with π¨βπ¦³" could go either way.
From strangers, π¨β𦳠is usually descriptive: pointing out someone in a crowd, referencing a public figure, or telling a story. "The π¨β𦳠at the coffee shop" is a description, not a judgment.
Flirty or friendly?
π¨β𦳠becomes flirty when paired with fire (π₯), heart eyes (π), or used to call someone a silver fox. On its own, it's descriptive. The flirtiness comes from context, not the emoji itself. If someone sends "you're giving π¨βπ¦³π₯," that's a compliment with romantic undertones.
- β’π¨βπ¦³π₯ or π¨βπ¦³π? Flirty. They find the silver look attractive.
- β’π¨β𦳠used to describe someone in a story? Descriptive, not flirty.
- β’'You're such a π¨βπ¦³' with no modifiers? Could go either way. Ask.
- β’In a bio: usually self-representation, not flirting.
If a guy sends π¨β𦳠about himself, he's either representing his actual appearance (he has gray hair), joking about aging or stress, or leaning into the silver fox aesthetic. If he sends it about someone else, it's descriptive.
If a girl sends π¨β𦳠with π₯ or π, she's complimenting someone's silver fox look. If she's describing a person, it's just descriptive. 'My type is π¨βπ¦³π₯' is clear. The emoji isn't flirty on its own, but the context usually makes the intent obvious.
Emoji combos
Origin story
Before 2018, emoji people came in one hair color: dark. You could change skin tone (added in 2015), but hair was fixed. Jeremy Burge, the founder of Emojipedia, submitted a proposal to the Unicode Consortium in 2017 arguing for hair diversity. He included examples of notable figures with non-standard hair: Anderson Cooper (white hair), Ed Sheeran (red hair), and people with natural curly or afro-textured hair who had zero representation in the emoji set.
The Unicode Technical Committee approved four "emoji component" characters: π¦° Red Hair, 𦱠Curly Hair, 𦳠White Hair, and 𦲠Bald. These components don't work as standalone person emojis. Instead, they combine with existing person emojis through ZWJ (Zero Width Joiner) sequences. π¨ + ZWJ + 𦳠= π¨βπ¦³. The system was elegant: rather than creating dozens of new person emojis, four components could generate 24+ new combinations across genders and skin tones.
CNN covered the announcement under the headline "Redheads, textured hair, bald heads are coming to the Emoji lineup." Red hair was the most requested feature (the Ginger Parrot blog had campaigned for years), but 𦳠white hair filled a quieter gap: representing the millions of people whose hair doesn't match any age-based emoji.
Added in Emoji 11.0 (June 2018) as a ZWJ (Zero Width Joiner) sequence: (Man) + (ZWJ) + (White Hair). Part of the hair diversity expansion that also included red hair (π¦°), curly hair (π¦±), and bald (π¦²) components. Proposed by Jeremy Burge, founder of Emojipedia and member of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee.
Design history
- 2017Jeremy Burge proposes hair diversity emojis to Unicode, including white hair, red hair, curly hair, and baldβ
- 2018Unicode 11.0 and Emoji 11.0 approve 𦳠White Hair component and π¨β𦳠Man: White Hair ZWJ sequence
- 2018Apple ships white hair emojis in iOS 12.1. Google adds them in Android 9.0 Pie.
- 2019Samsung and WhatsApp add support, completing major platform coverage
Around the world
The emoji reads differently depending on cultural attitudes toward gray hair. In East Asian cultures, particularly Japan and Korea, white hair carries associations with wisdom and earned respect. The Japanese concept of "shiraga" (η½ι«ͺ, white hair) in elders is culturally valued, though premature graying can carry stigma. In Korean culture, dark circles under eyes are a beauty concern but gray hair on men is increasingly fashionable.
In Western culture, gray hair on men has undergone a rehabilitation. The "silver fox" label, once reserved for Hollywood types like Clooney and Cooper, has expanded into a broader trend. A 2025 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that gray hair significantly influences perceived age and social perceptions, though the gender double standard persists: gray-haired men are called "distinguished" while gray-haired women face pressure to dye.
In South Asian cultures, premature graying is often attributed to stress or genetics and can carry social stigma, particularly around marriage prospects. The emoji π¨β𦳠sidesteps these cultural weights by being descriptive rather than evaluative. It shows what someone looks like, not how old they are.
Often confused with
Old Man (π΄) represents an elderly man in general. π¨β𦳠represents any man with white hair, regardless of age. A 30-year-old with premature gray uses π¨βπ¦³, not π΄. The confusion is understandable since both can refer to older men, but the distinction is age vs appearance.
Old Man (π΄) represents an elderly man in general. π¨β𦳠represents any man with white hair, regardless of age. A 30-year-old with premature gray uses π¨βπ¦³, not π΄. The confusion is understandable since both can refer to older men, but the distinction is age vs appearance.
Person: White Hair (π§βπ¦³) is the gender-neutral version. Use it when gender isn't relevant or when the person prefers gender-neutral representation. π¨β𦳠is specifically male.
Person: White Hair (π§βπ¦³) is the gender-neutral version. Use it when gender isn't relevant or when the person prefers gender-neutral representation. π¨β𦳠is specifically male.
π¨β𦳠(Man: White Hair) represents any man with white hair, regardless of age. π΄ (Old Man) represents an elderly man regardless of hair color. A 30-year-old with premature gray uses π¨βπ¦³. A 75-year-old with any hair color uses π΄. The distinction is appearance vs age.
Do's and don'ts
- βUse it for self-representation if you have white or gray hair
- βUse π¨βπ¦³π₯ as a compliment (silver fox energy)
- βUse it descriptively when telling stories ("the π¨β𦳠at the bar")
- βUse skin tone modifiers for more accurate representation
- βDon't use it to mock someone's age or appearance. Teasing friends is one thing; calling a coworker π¨β𦳠behind their back is another.
- βDon't assume π¨β𦳠= old. Many young people have gray or white hair.
- βDon't use it in professional contexts to refer to senior leadership without knowing their comfort level with it.
Not inherently. It's descriptive. Using it to describe someone's appearance is neutral. Using it to mock someone's age is rude, but that's about intent, not the emoji. The emoji itself was created specifically for better representation, not to enable ageism.
Caption ideas
Aesthetic sets
Type it as text
Fun facts
- β’Jeremy Burge used Anderson Cooper as one of his examples of white-haired public figures in his emoji proposal. Cooper has said he doesn't like being called a silver fox and wishes he still had brown hair. His hair started going gray his senior year of college.
- β’The 𦳠White Hair component can technically combine with any person emoji, but only the sequences recommended by Unicode (man, woman, person) render as single glyphs. Custom combinations like πΆβ𦳠(baby with white hair) won't display as one emoji on any platform.
- β’Red hair was the most-requested emoji feature before the 2018 hair diversity update. Websites like Ginger Parrot campaigned for years. White hair was a quieter addition but filled an equally important representation gap.
- β’Before π¨β𦳠existed, the only way to represent someone with gray hair in emoji was π΄ (Old Man), which forced anyone with gray hair to accept being coded as elderly. For the 6-23% of people under 30 who experience premature graying, this was a genuine representation problem.
- β’The four hair components (π¦°π¦±π¦³π¦²) created over 24 new person emoji combinations across genders and skin tones, all from just four additional characters. It's one of Unicode's most efficient expansions of emoji diversity.
Common misinterpretations
- β’The most common misread is equating π¨β𦳠with π΄. They overlap in many contexts, but π¨β𦳠doesn't imply advanced age. Someone with premature gray at 25 uses this emoji without meaning they're old.
- β’Some people use π¨β𦳠to mean "wise" or "experienced" even when hair color isn't relevant. That meaning exists but it's a stretch of the emoji's primary descriptive purpose.
In pop culture
- β’Anderson Cooper, the CNN anchor who started going gray in college, is the prototypical π¨βπ¦³. Despite his own discomfort with the "silver fox" label, he's become synonymous with distinguished gray hair in American media.
- β’The TikTok "silver fox" trend turned gray hair from something men hid into something they styled. Barber transformation videos of men embracing their gray routinely get millions of views, and π¨β𦳠appears throughout the comments.
- β’George Clooney's gray era cemented the "silver fox" archetype in Hollywood. The SilverFox Style blog ranks him and Cooper among the top silver foxes in media.
Trivia
For developers
- β’ZWJ sequence: + + . Three codepoints, renders as one glyph on supported platforms.
- β’Skin tone modifiers go on the person base: + (light skin) + + = π¨π»βπ¦³. The hair component doesn't take a modifier.
- β’Fallback rendering: on unsupported systems, this shows as π¨π¦³ (man + white hair square). Test across platforms if you're building with this emoji.
- β’Discord shortcode: . GitHub: . Slack: (note the different delimiter).
- β’The 𦳠component exists as a standalone character but displays as a white/gray square on most platforms. It's designed as a modifier, not an independent emoji.
It arrived in Emoji 11.0 in June 2018, alongside other hair diversity emojis (red hair, curly hair, bald). The proposal was submitted by Jeremy Burge, founder of Emojipedia, in 2017.
Yes. The skin tone modifier goes on the base person character, not the hair component. You get π¨π»βπ¦³, π¨πΌβπ¦³, π¨π½βπ¦³, π¨πΎβπ¦³, and π¨πΏβ𦳠across all five Fitzpatrick scale options.
Your phone or OS may not support ZWJ (Zero Width Joiner) sequences for this emoji yet. When unsupported, the three characters (π¨ + invisible joiner + π¦³) display as two visible characters: a man and a white square. Updating your OS usually fixes this.
See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.
What does π¨β𦳠mean to you?
Select all that apply
- Man: White Hair (emojipedia.org)
- Hair Diversity Emoji Proposal (refinery29.com)
- New redhead emojis arrive, along with other unique hair styles (today.com)
- Redheads, textured hair, bald heads are coming to the Emoji lineup (cnn.com)
- Gray hair influences perceived age and social perceptions (frontiersin.org)
- Anderson Cooper Struggles With Silver Fox Label (yahoo.com)
- The Redhead Emoji: A Timeline (gingerparrot.co.uk)
- Top 10 Silver Foxes in Media (silverfox.style)
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