Meanings
A squared Japanese kanji, 指 (yubi), used on Japanese signage and booking systems to mean “reserved.” It comes from Unicode's original 2010 carrier-symbol emoji set and shows up mainly in restaurant, seat, and venue reservation contexts. Outside Japan it's rarely typed for its literal meaning; English speakers who use it usually reference an actual Japanese reservation sign, like the small paper tent on a restaurant table.
Because most English speakers can't read the underlying kanji, it works best paired with context, like a seat number or venue name, rather than standing alone.
It echoes the small 予約席 (reserved-seat) tent cards used on tables and train seats in Japan, a signage convention unfamiliar to most non-Japanese-speaking users.
Combos with 🈯️
Culture
指 (yubi) literally means “finger” or “to point,” but as a squared signage character it's repurposed to mean “reserved,” the way an English “RESERVED” card points to a specific seat.
It belongs to a set of red-square Japanese signage emoji that most English speakers encounter only when searching an emoji picker for “reserved” and stumbling on it, rather than through everyday cultural exposure.
Because the underlying kanji is illegible to non-readers, this emoji has one of the lowest recognition rates of any Unicode emoji among English-speaking users of any age.
History
Unicode 6.0 unifies the docomo, au, and SoftBank carrier pictogram sets into the original global emoji block, encoding this squared kanji button in the process.
Google and Apple engineers pushed to standardize Japan's three carrier emoji sets so text messages would render consistently across networks and, eventually, other countries.
iOS 5 opens the full Unicode emoji keyboard to all users worldwide for the first time, rather than restricting it to Japanese carrier accounts as earlier iOS versions had.
Apple's decision in October 2011 to unlock the previously Japan-exclusive emoji keyboard exposed English-speaking users to obscure symbols like 🈯️ for the first time.