History of Shrug Emoji
As with anything born on the Internet, this new shrug emoji came to be due to one defining event, and then people just made it widespread. This one, however, did not begin in English. It's referred to as a "kaomoji" or "facial mark" in Japan. It uses letters from the Japanese katana alphabet, so it's not your normal emoji with underscores, slashes, and dashes.
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