Flag Emoji

Flag EmojiFlag Emoji PNG

🏁 🚩 🎌 🏴 🏳 🏳️‍🌈 🏴‍☠️ 🏳️‍⚧️
Flag emojis are immensely popular on social media. They require some caution, as despite their similarities, different flag emojis mean dramatically different things. It’s easy to make a blunder here!

For instance, the white flag has a safety issue. It’s not unusual to confuse it with another symbol that looks similar but has a dramatically different usage.

Meaning and Use of the Flag Emoji

🚩The most common association with the Triangular Flag emoji is probably golf. It was inspired by a flagstick, which is used to identify the hole’s location.

Triangular Flag emoji

The meaning of this icon goes far beyond golf, though. For instance, it can be a visual representation of the “red flag” idiom, used to warn about a problem or issue. It’s especially common when talking about relationships. Here, you’ll use it to show that someone has behaved in such a way that reveals something bad about their personality and is part of a disturbing or even dangerous pattern.

🏳️ The White Flag emoji is not to be confused with the Trans Flag emoji, also known as the Transgender Pride Flag emoji. The latter, a mainstay in the transgender community, is the combination of the white flag and the transgender symbol ⚧️. While there’s a separate Trans Flag emoji on many platforms, some devices literally use a combo of two emojis, the white flag and the transgender icon.

White Flag emoji

That said, in which cases do you use the original White Flag emoji itself? Saying “I surrender” is the most popular context. You either admit defeat or want to stop the fight temporarily. Maybe you’ve been arguing with someone and want to ask for a ceasefire. On the whole, it’s all about seeking peace.

🏴 The meaning of the Black Flag emoji is much more than the reverse of the white flag. The Black Flag is all about anarchy and rebellion, being unconventional and unorthodox. Sometimes it can literally mean piracy, as black is the color of the pirate flag. But more often, it’s more about all the symbolic connotations of being a pirate and defying conventions.

Black Flag emoji

Mourning and grief are other domains where the Black Flag emoji can be used. Someone can even use it to say they feel nothing or are just in a bad mood.

Technical Information

🚩 The Triangular Flag emoji was introduced in the Unicode 6.0 release (2010) as “Triangular Flag on Post” and became part of Emoji 1.0 in 2015.

Alternative names: “Flag on Pole” and “Red Flag.”

Code: U+1F6A9.

🏳️ The White Flag emoji was first published as “Waving White Flag” in the Unicode 7.0 release (2014). The following year, it was added to Emoji 1.0.

Code: U+1F3F3, U+FE0F.

🏴 The Black Flag emoji was approved in 2014 as “Waving Black Flag” and became part of the Unicode 7.0 collection. A year later, it was published within Emoji 1.0.

Code:   U+1F3F4.

Conclusion

The strength of the flag icons is that they aren’t explicit. Want to stop a virtual fight easily and simply? The White Flag emoji is there to help you! Use its colorless sibling, the Black Flag, to talk about breaking the rules or going through a loss, a dark period in life. When you want to hint that something’s going wrong, the Triangular Flag emoji is your best bet.

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