diff --git a/client/js/helpers/parse.js b/client/js/helpers/parse.js
index 61a388a1..6663827b 100644
--- a/client/js/helpers/parse.js
+++ b/client/js/helpers/parse.js
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ import LinkPreviewFileSize from "../../components/LinkPreviewFileSize.vue";
 import InlineChannel from "../../components/InlineChannel.vue";
 import Username from "../../components/Username.vue";
 
-const emojiModifiersRegex = /[\u{1f3fb}-\u{1f3ff}]/gu;
+const emojiModifiersRegex = /[\u{1f3fb}-\u{1f3ff}]|\u{fe0f}/gu;
 
 // Create an HTML `span` with styling information for a given fragment
 function createFragment(fragment, createElement) {
diff --git a/scripts/generate-emoji.js b/scripts/generate-emoji.js
index d864d074..715a3ac0 100644
--- a/scripts/generate-emoji.js
+++ b/scripts/generate-emoji.js
@@ -4,6 +4,9 @@ const got = require("got");
 const path = require("path");
 const fs = require("fs");
 
+// same regex as found in client/../parse.js
+const emojiModifiersRegex = /[\u{1f3fb}-\u{1f3ff}]|\u{fe0f}/gu;
+
 (async () => {
 	const response = await got(
 		"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/github/gemoji/master/db/emoji.json"
@@ -13,7 +16,8 @@ const fs = require("fs");
 	const fullNameEmojiMap = {};
 
 	for (const emoji of emojiStrategy) {
-		fullNameEmojiMap[emoji.emoji] = emoji.description;
+		const cleanEmoji = emoji.emoji.replace(emojiModifiersRegex, "");
+		fullNameEmojiMap[cleanEmoji] = emoji.description;
 
 		for (const alias of emoji.aliases) {
 			emojiMap[alias] = emoji.emoji;
diff --git a/test/client/js/helpers/parse.js b/test/client/js/helpers/parse.js
index 9cdce2b8..70272cd1 100644
--- a/test/client/js/helpers/parse.js
+++ b/test/client/js/helpers/parse.js
@@ -458,6 +458,22 @@ describe("IRC formatted message parser", () => {
 			expected:
 				'<span role="img" aria-label="Emoji: woman shrugging" title="Emoji: woman shrugging" class="emoji">🤷‍♀️</span>',
 		},
+		{
+			name: "with emoji variant selector",
+			input: "\u{2695}\u{FE0F}",
+			expected:
+				'<span role="img" aria-label="Emoji: medical symbol" title="Emoji: medical symbol" class="emoji">\u{2695}\u{FE0F}</span>',
+		},
+		{
+			name: "with text variant selector",
+			input: "\u{2695}\u{FE0E}",
+			expected: "\u{2695}\u{FE0E}", // this does not match because FE0E is specifically a text variant
+		},
+		{
+			name: "without variant selector",
+			input: "\u{2695}",
+			expected: "\u{2695}", // this does not match because emoji-regex expects \uFE0F as per the emoji specification
+		},
 		{
 			// FIXME: These multiple `span`s should be optimized into a single one. See https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge/issues/1783
 			name: "wrapped in style",