Kaomoji and text faces: a guide to copying, using and making your own

Long before every phone had emoji, people were already making faces out of whatever their keyboard offered: a colon, a dash and a parenthesis. Those faces never went away. In fact, they got a lot more expressive. Dropping a ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ into the group chat or answering with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ says something a yellow emoji doesn't always manage. They have personality, they feel handmade, and they make whatever you type feel a little more like you.

This guide covers what kaomoji are, where they came from, how they differ from emoticons and from emoji, the most popular categories and, most importantly, where they work and where they fall apart. If you just want to grab one, there's a kaomoji collection ready to tap and paste, plus a set of ASCII faces for when you need something simple that shows up anywhere.

What kaomoji are and where they come from

The word kaomoji is Japanese and blends two ideas: face and characters. In other words, faces made of letters and symbols. They took off in Japan on forums and chat systems in the eighties and nineties, when computers could already display Japanese characters and a big set of extra symbols. With that much to work with, people started building faces far more detailed than the English-speaking internet's.

The best-known difference is direction. Classic Western emoticons are read sideways: to see the face in :-) you have to tilt your head to the left. Kaomoji are read straight on, as if the face were looking right at you: (^_^) or (◕‿◕). On top of that, kaomoji put most of the emotion in the eyes rather than the mouth. A pair of arched eyes like ^ ^ already reads as happy, even if the mouth is just a tiny line.

Western emoticons, ASCII faces and kaomoji

People use these terms interchangeably, but it helps to keep them apart. Western emoticons are the old classics, like :) ;) :D :( :P or the heart <3. ASCII faces stick to characters found on any basic keyboard, like ^_^ or -_- or o_O, which is why they look the same on almost every device. Kaomoji pull from the whole Unicode universe: letters from other alphabets, math signs, shapes and even box-drawing pieces, like the ones in the famous table flip.

Kaomoji vs emoji: not the same thing

An emoji is a single character with an assigned picture. When you send a red heart, your phone sends a code and the other person's device draws it in its own style. That's why the same emoji looks slightly different on Android, on an iPhone or on a laptop. A kaomoji is a combination of several ordinary characters that together form a face. There's no official drawing: the face is exactly what you typed.

That cuts both ways. The upside is freedom: you can swap the eyes, add arms, attach a heart or an object, and end up with something nobody else has. The downside is that you depend on the device's font having every one of those characters. If one is missing, you get an empty box or an odd symbol and the face falls apart.

Kaomoji categories for every mood

The fun part of kaomoji is that there's one for every mood. Here are the most popular groups, with real examples you can copy. For a lot more, the kaomoji tool sorts them by category and copies them with one tap.

Happy and excited

These are the go-to faces for saying hi, celebrating or just sounding friendly. Look at the eyes: arches, shiny circles and faces with raised arms all carry energy.

Sad and crying

For when you bombed the test, your favorite show ended or you lost the match in the last second. Vertical lines and tear-shaped characters do all the work here.

Love and hugs

Love kaomoji mix soft faces with hearts or hugging arms. If you like this style, pair them with heart symbols to build fuller messages.

Angry and unimpressed

For showing you're annoyed without typing in all caps. The classic ಠ_ಠ borrows a character from a South Indian script that looks like a hard stare, and it turned into the universal symbol of disapproval.

Shrugs and confusion

The famous ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ means something like no idea or oh well. It's built from a macron, a backslash, an underscore and a Japanese character that happens to look like a face. One catch: some apps treat the backslash or the underscores as formatting, and the left arm vanishes. We explain how to avoid that further down.

Animals

Bears, cats and dogs are favorites for decorating bios and usernames. The bear ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ uses phonetic letters for its ears, while the cat uses symbols that look like whiskers and paws.

Actions: table flips and more

Here's the table flip, probably the most famous kaomoji on the internet. It's used for over-the-top frustration, almost always as a joke. And it has a comeback: someone calmly putting the table back where it belongs.

Where they work and where they break

A kaomoji is text, so in theory it works anywhere you can type. In practice three things can go wrong: the font, character limits and each app's automatic formatting.

Fonts that are missing characters

Every device ships different fonts, and none of them covers all of Unicode. If a kaomoji uses an uncommon symbol the font doesn't have, you'll see an empty box, a question mark or a gap. The safest characters are the basic keyboard ones; the riskiest come from rarely used scripts, plus combining marks that attach to the previous character, like the accents on the eyes in (ง •̀_•́)ง. On recent phones nearly everything looks fine, but on consoles, TVs or games with their own fonts the result can change a lot.

Character limits

A kaomoji takes up several characters, sometimes more than it looks. The table flip is well over ten. That matters if you want it in a username, a gaming nickname or a bio with a tight limit. Before pasting, check the length of your whole text with the character counter, because some platforms count special symbols differently from what you see on screen.

Formatting that eats symbols

Apps like WhatsApp and Discord use symbols such as underscores, asterisks and tildes for formatting. If your kaomoji contains them, the app may turn part of the face italic or bold and swallow characters. The classic case is the left arm of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, which disappears because the backslash acts as an escape character. If that happens, type two backslashes or try another version of the face. To understand how each app handles formatting, see our pages on WhatsApp fonts and Discord fonts.

Names in games

Many games restrict which characters you can use in a nickname, to avoid names nobody can read or search for. A kaomoji can look perfect in chat and still be rejected as a name. There's no way to know without trying, so test it on the name-change screen before spending a rename card or a limited change. Our guide to symbols for names has simpler characters that tend to cause fewer problems.

Accessibility: what they sound like on a screen reader

Hardly anyone thinks about this, but it matters. Blind and low-vision people use screen readers that read text aloud. An emoji has an official name, so the reader says something like smiling face. A kaomoji has no name: the reader tries to read each character on its own, and the result can be a long list of meaningless symbols, like left parenthesis, Greek letter, dot, underscore, right parenthesis. Sometimes it skips symbols it doesn't recognize, and the face simply doesn't exist for that listener.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't use them. It means using them wisely: as decoration, not as the key part of the message. If you write be there at five (◕‿◕), the message still makes sense even if the face sounds odd. If you reply with nothing but a kaomoji to a yes or no question, someone using a screen reader won't know what you meant.

• Put the important information in plain words and leave the kaomoji as a finishing touch.
• Avoid very long kaomoji in usernames, because every time someone mentions you the screen reader repeats the whole symbol soup.
• In public posts, use one or two, not ten in a row.
• The same goes for styled letters: our guide to fancy Unicode letters explains why it's best not to write whole texts with them.

How to type or copy kaomoji on phone and PC

The easiest way is copy and paste. Open the kaomoji list, tap the one you want and paste it wherever you need it. It all runs in your browser and there's nothing to install.

On your phone

• Copy the kaomoji from a page and paste it by long-pressing the text field.
• Many Android and iPhone keyboards include a text-face or kaomoji section next to the emoji. Look for it behind the emoji button or in your keyboard settings.
• Use your keyboard's text replacement: save a shortcut like tableflip and have it expand to (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ as you type. It's the fastest way to keep favorites handy.
• If you always use the same few, keep them in a note and copy from there.

On a computer

• On Windows, the Windows key plus period opens a panel with emoji, symbols and a kaomoji section.
• On a Mac, the character viewer lets you search symbols by name and save favorites.
• ASCII faces need nothing special: everything is already on the keyboard.
• Kaomoji browser extensions exist, but don't install anything that asks for broad permissions; copying from a page is just as fast.

How to make your own kaomoji

Building a kaomoji is like putting a face together from LEGO pieces. They all share the same structure: an outline, eyes, a mouth and, if you like, arms or a prop. Change a single piece and you get a completely different mood.

1. Pick the outline: regular parentheses ( ), full-width parentheses （ ）, brackets, or nothing at all for a minimalist look.
2. Choose the eyes: ^ ^ for happy, ; ; for crying, ಠ ಠ for judging, ◕ ◕ for cute, ò ó for angry, ° ° for surprised.
3. Add the mouth: ‿ for a soft smile, ▽ for a big grin, □ for a scream, ω for something cute, ﹏ for sad.
4. Add arms or cheeks: ノ and ヽ work as raised arms, ＼ and ／ as open arms, and asterisks or ｡ as blushing cheeks.
5. Throw in an extra: a heart ♥, a sparkle ✧, a hot cup ♨ or a few zzZ.
6. Test it in the app where you'll use it to make sure it shows up complete.

For more pieces, browse the star symbols or the flower symbols: many of those shapes look great as accents next to a face. If you want a kaomoji next to your name, the name decorator helps you mix styled letters, frames and symbols.

Ideas for chats, bios and usernames

Kaomoji shine wherever you want to sound warm without typing much. A few ideas that work well:

• In the group chat, to soften a message that could come across as cold: just got here (^_^).
• In your Instagram or TikTok bio, as a visual sign-off at the end. Our guide to writing a bio for Instagram and TikTok has more ideas on structure.
• On Discord, next to your status or in the name of a meme channel, always checking first that it displays properly.
• In team or clan names, as a playful touch. For inspiration, see our guide to clan names.
• In greetings, to add warmth to a birthday or New Year message.

Etiquette: when to use them and when to skip them

Kaomoji are casual by nature. They're perfect with friends, in gaming communities, in fandoms and on social media. In a job application email, a message to a teacher you don't know well or anything official, skip them or keep it to one very low-key face. They're not forbidden, they just might make your message seem less serious.

• Watch the tone: a table flip is funny between friends, but if someone is genuinely upset it can come off as mocking.
• Don't overdo it: one kaomoji per message looks cute; five in a row turns into noise.
• Read the room: some servers and groups use them constantly and others never do. Adapt.
• Don't use them for anything important: times, addresses and yes or no answers belong in words.
• Respect the roots: many kaomoji come from Japanese internet culture; it's great to use them, and good to know where they came from.

If you enjoy the world of special characters, there's plenty more to explore. Kaomoji are cousins of fancy letters for social media and tricks like the invisible character, which also rely on Unicode. They all share the same golden rule: they look amazing when they work, so always test before you post.