This emoji flies the flag of French Polynesia—aka Tahiti, Bora Bora, and your phone’s lock-screen wallpaper IRL. On Apple devices it’s a small, gently waving rectangle on a silver pole: red top and bottom, white middle, and a circular badge in the center showing a golden sun over blue waves with a red outrigger canoe and five tiny figures—instant island vibes in miniature. That round emblem is your tell; it keeps this one from being mistaken for Austria, Monaco, or Indonesia’s red-and-white lookalikes.
Online, it’s the go-to flex for honeymoon reveals, overwater-bungalow brags, and dreamy “WFH (Working From Hammock)” captions. Expect it to pop up with palm trees, waves, and cocktail emojis when someone’s posting lagoon-blue thirst traps or hyping surf edits from Teahupo’o (especially after the Paris 2024 surfing spotlight). It also carries pride for locals and diaspora, often paired with the tiare flower and sunny “ia orana” greetings. Sarcastically, people drop it when they’re sipping coconut water next to a kiddie pool, or when the group chat plans Bora Bora but the wallet says ‘bora-broke.’ In DMs, it can read flirtatious—“let’s run away to Tahiti”—or dramatic, as in, “I’m booking a one-way if Monday emails hit different.”
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Emoji History The emoji code/ image log of changes.
This emoji first appeared in OSX / iOS after the iOS 9 update.
