Why the default "thumb up" emoji in my iPhone is white?

It's actually more of a question of, where did that white hand even come from? It doesn't exist on Sequoia, or in iOS 18.

The iOS/macOS thumbs up is the lower one. I did searches for hand, glove and white. There is no choice anywhere for the white hand with the shorter fingers.

Took me a bit to find it as the feature is called Back Tap, not tapback.

It's off by default. When I tried turning it on, there's very long list of actions you can assign to a double or triple back tap. None of which seemed to have anything to do with placing memoji, sticker or anything related.

And I agree with 130lbsrock, I'd call it a white glove. In none of the emojis is any white skin choice actually white. You'd either have to be grayish/white dead, or a true albino to be that white.

Or, as George Carlin once said, "We're not black and white. We're brown and pink."

Kurt Lang wrote:

Took me a bit to find it as the feature is called Back Tap, not tapback.

Tapback and Back Tap are two different things. Yet another example of Apple naming things in a confusing way. ;-)

React with Tapbacks in Messages on iPhone - Apple Support

I think anonymous230 had the right answer.

Hello~ You and anonymous270 are correct. Good work!!

~Katana-San~

Katana-San wrote:

Hello~ You and anonymous270 are correct. Good work!!

Most of the credit goes to anonymous270. It was a great catch.

It doesn’t give me any options when I hold the yellow thumbs up. When I click on it as a reply it turns white with a blue background.