Thumbs up 👍

How to read it

Unicode names the emoji 👍 THUMBS UP SIGN (U+1F44D). Rick Steves says the sign popular in the United States is used widely in most of Europe to say “OK”, but that across continental Europe a raised thumb is generally a request for one of something, since counting there starts with the thumb. At Texas A&M University the same hand is “Gig ’em”, a sign the Handbook of Texas says an A&M regent, Pinky Downs, created in 1930.

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Where it is an insult

Slate’s Explainer, in March 2003, wrote that the thumbs up traditionally translates as the foulest of Iraqi insults, “Up yours, pal!”, and that Roger Axtell’s book on gestures gives it a similar meaning in parts of West Africa, Russia, Australia, Iran, Greece and Sardinia. SmarterTravel’s 2014 list names Afghanistan, Iran, parts of Italy and Greece. The same Slate piece quotes a US Defense Language Institute manual: after the first Gulf War, people of the Arabian Peninsula adopted the gesture, with the OK sign, as a symbol of cooperation toward freedom.

How younger people read 👍

In a survey by Marina Zhukova and Susan Herring, published in Language@Internet, Gen Z rated messages with 👍 as less friendly than older generations did, and baby boomers rated them more playful than any younger group. The authors cite reports that many younger users avoid the emoji as sarcastic or passive-aggressive. Brittany Ferdinands, a media lecturer at the University of Sydney, wrote in The Conversation in 2025 that the thumbs up is often read as passive aggressive, and that context counts: 👍 from a boss at work is easier to take than from a romantic interest.

Where the approving thumb came from

Not from the arena: Slate calls the gladiator story completely debunked. In 1997 the classicist Anthony Philip Corbeill concluded from hundreds of ancient artworks that a raised thumb at the games meant “Kill him”. Desmond Morris’s Gestures: Their Origins and Distribution traces the approving thumb to a medieval custom for sealing a bargain, and its spread in America is put down to Second World War pilots signalling ground crews before take-off.