The 👋 (waving) emoji means “hello!” When you see someone in person, it’s common practice to give a little wave when you say hi to them. You can also do more or less the same thing over text or instant message and greet the people you text—since the 👋 emoji mimics the gesture of a hand waving hello.

Waving Hand A hand waving most commonly used to say “hello” or “goodbye”. This emoji can be used to convey a sense of not being friends any more when used on WeChat in China. Waving Hand was approved as part of Unicode 6.0 in 2010 under the name "Waving Hand Sign" and added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015.