The ? emoji, also known as the "thinking face" emoji, was added to the Unicode Standard in 2015 as part of Unicode 8.0. It was created by designer Shigetaka Kurita in 1998 as part of a set of 176 original emojis for the Japanese mobile phone company NTT Docomo. The design was inspired by a manga character named "Kao-chan," who is known for her contemplative expression. The emoji's popularity has since spread globally and is now commonly used to indicate confusion, thoughtfulness, or skepticism.
