What kaomoji are
Kaomoji are faces made from ordinary text characters. The word is Japanese: 顔 (kao) means face and 文字 (moji) means character, so kaomoji simply means face characters. Unlike Western emoticons such as :-) or ;-), which you read by tilting your head to the left, kaomoji are read upright. The eyes sit side by side and the mouth sits between them, as in (^_^) or (◕‿◕).
Because they are built from many different scripts, kaomoji can show a lot with a few characters. Japanese katakana gives the shrug its face (ツ), Kannada gives the stare its eyes (ಠ_ಠ), and box drawing characters become tables to flip.
How to use this page
- Tap to copy: tap a face and it is copied, ready to paste into a message, a comment, a username or a document.
- Search: type a word such as cat, cry, love or dance to jump to the right group.
- Collect: switch "Tap to" to Collect, tap several faces, then copy them all together.
Kaomoji, emoticons and emoji
People use several names for the same idea: kaomoji, text faces, emoticons and text emoticons. On this page they all mean the same thing: a face made of plain characters. Emoji are different. An emoji such as 😀 is a single character that each phone maker draws as its own picture, in color. A kaomoji is a string of normal characters, so it takes the color and font of the text around it.
The shrug and the table flip
Two text faces are used so often that people search for them by name. The shrug emoticon ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ says "who knows" or "oh well". In some apps the backslash vanishes when you type it by hand, because the app treats a backslash before an underscore as a formatting code and hides it. Copying it from here keeps every character in place.
The table flip (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ shows mock frustration. Its calm reply, ┬─┬ノ( º _ ºノ), puts the table back on its legs. Both are in the Table flip group, along with a few variants, including a bear that flips one.
Plain text that pastes anywhere
Every face here is plain text, not an image, so it works wherever you can type text. A face can look a little different from one device to another because each system uses its own fonts. If one character shows as an empty box, that device has no font for it; most of the faces on this page use widely supported characters.
Screen readers read each character of a kaomoji one by one, so a face like (◕‿◕) can be announced as a long list of symbol names. Put the important part of your message in words.
Questions
What does kaomoji mean?
Kaomoji is a Japanese word made of 顔 (kao, face) and 文字 (moji, character). It means faces made from text characters, such as (^_^) or (◕‿◕).
How do I type the shrug emoticon?
Tap ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in the Shrug group to copy it, then paste it. Typing it by hand is hard because it uses a macron, a katakana letter and a backslash that some apps hide.
How do I copy several kaomoji at once?
Switch "Tap to" to Collect, tap each face you want, then press Copy all.
What is the difference between kaomoji and emoticons?
Western emoticons like :-) are read sideways. Kaomoji are read upright and often use characters from Japanese and other scripts. Many people use both words for any text face.
Why does a kaomoji look different on my friend's phone?
Each device draws characters with its own fonts, so shapes and spacing can change slightly. If a character shows as a box, that device has no font for it.