
Culture and Computing, Lecturer Notes in Computer Science. "Hesitation in intercultural communication: Some observations on interpreting shoulder shrugging" (PDF). ^ Jokinen, Kristiina Allwood, Jens (September 2, 2010)."The shrug: Forms and meanings of a compound enactment". The shrug emoticon, better known as the shruggie, made from Unicode characters, is also typed as ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, where "ツ" is the character tsu from Japanese katakana.

The shrug gesture is a Unicode emoji included as U+1F937 🤷 SHRUG. The Gallic shrug, "generally a nuanced gesture with myriad meanings", performed by sticking out your lower lip, raising your eyebrows and shoulders simultaneously, and voicing a nonchalant Bof. People from the Philippines, Iran and Iraq may interpret a shrug as a somewhat impolite sign of confidence. In many countries, such as the United States, Sweden and Morocco, a shrug represents hesitation or lack of knowledge however, in other countries, such as Japan and China, shrugging is uncommon and is not used to show hesitation. A shrug is an emblem, meaning that it integrates the vocabulary of only certain cultures and may be used in place of words. The shoulder-raising action may be accompanied by rotating the palms upwards, pulling closed lips downwards, raising the eyebrows or tilting the head to one side. A shrug is a gesture performed by raising both shoulders, and is a representation of an individual either being indifferent about something or not knowing an answer to a question.
