Neutral Face Emoji
A flat, straight-mouthed expression showing no reaction at all, which is itself the reaction.
Try Neutral Face emoji
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Meaning & usage
What does the Neutral Face emoji mean?
A flat, straight-mouthed expression showing no reaction at all, which is itself the reaction.
Pointedly blank. Withholding a reaction is the message, which can read as dry humour with friends and as cold disapproval with anyone else.
How to use 😐 naturally
Deadpan replies, unimpressed silences and moments where any comment would be too much.
Face emoji usually carry more tone than literal information. Read them alongside the words, the relationship between the people, and whether the conversation is playful, formal or tense.
From standard to slang
The history of 😐
- 2014
First defined as emoji
According to Unicode’s Emoji Versions data, Neutral Face was first defined as emoji in Emoji 0.7, dated 2014. Another retrospective label, covering characters recognised as emoji in 2014.
- Before the keyboard
Its visual roots
A straight line for a mouth under open eyes. It is deliberately the absence of an expression, which people read as disapproval more often than as nothing.
- Today
How its use evolved
Deadpan replies, unimpressed silences and moments where any comment would be too much.
Dates follow Unicode’s official Emoji Versions chart. Versions before Emoji 1.0 are labelled retrospectively. See the history of emoji.
In conversation
Examples of 😐 in messages
These examples show the emoji in complete messages, where the words make its intended tone easier to read.
He said it would take five minutes. That was Tuesday 😐
So the file was never saved 😐
Great. Cold coffee again 😐
When to use it
Using 😐 clearly
Deadpan replies, unimpressed silences and moments where any comment would be too much. It lands as neutral face meaning or straight face emoji when the rest of the message supports that reading, and it is the surrounding words that do the deciding — so in a sensitive, professional or cross-cultural conversation, say the thing outright as well.
Common questions
About the neutral face emoji
What does 😐 mean in a text message?
A flat, straight-mouthed expression showing no reaction at all, which is itself the reaction. Pointedly blank. Withholding a reaction is the message, which can read as dry humour with friends and as cold disapproval with anyone else.
Is 😐 always positive?
Not always. Its usual readings are neutral face meaning, straight face emoji, no reaction emoji, and irony or the relationship between the people can flip any of them.
Why does 😐 look different on another device?
U+1F610 identifies the emoji; the picture is a font, drawn separately by Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung. Only the artwork changes, never the character.
How do I copy and paste the neutral face emoji?
Use the copy button at the top of this page. 😐 is a character, not an image, so it pastes into messages, captions and filenames as ordinary text.
When was the neutral face emoji introduced?
Unicode’s Emoji Versions data first records 😐 as emoji in Emoji 0.7, dated 2014. Early emoji version numbers can be retrospective, so this date describes its place in the standardised emoji set rather than the first-ever appearance of the underlying symbol.
Easily confused
😐 compared with similar emoji
These sit close enough in meaning that people reach for the wrong one. Here is what actually separates them.
Neutral Face or Expressionless Face?
😑 closes the eyes, which adds a note of endurance. 😐 is blanker and slightly more neutral.
Neutral Face or Unamused Face?
😒 looks sideways and disapproves. 😐 withholds any verdict at all, which can be more unsettling.
For developers
😐 in code
Every value below is generated from the character itself, so it stays correct even where a file encoding cannot hold the emoji directly.
| Format | Value | When to use it | Copy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode | U+1F610 | The standard reference. Use it to search a character map or a spec. | |
| HTML (hex) | 😐 | For HTML and XML. Safe in files that are not saved as UTF-8. | |
| HTML (decimal) | 😐 | The same reference in decimal. Both render identically. | |
| CSS | \1F610 | For the content property. Keep the quotes around the whole value. | |
| JavaScript | \u{1F610} | A string-literal escape. Needs the u flag inside a regular expression. | |
| URL-encoded | %F0%9F%98%90 | Percent-encoded UTF-8, for query strings and API requests. |
Reference card
Emoji details
- Unicode
- U+1F610
- Category
- Smileys & Emotion
- Also known as
- neutral face meaningstraight face emojino reaction emoji
Put it in a message
When 😐 is the right choice
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