Faces you read upright
If you have seen a face like (^_^) in a chat, you have seen a kaomoji. The name joins the Japanese words for face and character, and unlike a Western :) you read it straight on instead of tilting your head.
A kaomoji is built from punctuation, letters and symbols arranged as eyes, a mouth and sometimes arms. The arrangement suggests an expression such as joy, a shrug or a table flip, but the meaning comes from context.
The parts often come from different scripts. The character ツ is the Japanese Katakana letter TU, ω is Greek omega and ≧ is a mathematical symbol. Their use as part of a face does not change what they are in Unicode.
A string of characters, not a picture
When you copy a kaomoji you copy a string of characters, including any backslashes, spaces and combining marks. Nothing is a picture. A font draws the characters, so spacing and shapes can differ between apps.
Some faces include emoji, which are also characters or sequences of characters. If part of a face is missing after you paste it, the app's font probably lacks that character.
The TextToolbox Kaomoji tool lets you browse stored faces by mood, search them and copy one. It does not write new faces.
Not every kaomoji is ASCII. Some simple ones are, such as (^_^), but many use characters from other scripts and symbol sets, so calling every kaomoji ASCII art is not accurate.
If copying fails, select the full face by hand and copy it. Keep every backslash, space and punctuation mark, because losing one changes the face.
The parts that matter when you copy a face
- The table below lists characters that often appear as eyes, mouths and borders, with their code points.
- Some faces, such as a table flip, include a fullwidth parenthesis and a space that matter. Copy the whole face, because retyping only the visible parts can change it.
- A shrug face includes a backslash. If you type it by hand, make sure the backslash is not lost.
| Code point | Exact character | Unicode identity and family |
|---|---|---|
| U+25D5 | | CIRCLE WITH ALL BUT UPPER LEFT QUADRANT BLACK; geometric symbol |
| U+203F | | UNDERTIE; punctuation |
| U+30C4 | | KATAKANA LETTER TU; Katakana letter |
| U+03C9 | | GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA; Greek letter |
| U+2267 | | GREATER-THAN OVER EQUAL TO; mathematical symbol |
Using a face without losing the message
- Adding a face to a message or a post. Say the important part in words too.
- Learning which script each part of a face comes from.
- Fixing a face that pasted wrongly: compare the full original with the pasted result before changing anything.
- Plain-text notes and profiles: check the field in the app you will use, because some strip symbols.