Western emoticons
:-) ;-) :-P XD :'(
Read sideways, ASCII only. Invented in 1982 as a workaround for a character set with nothing better, which is why they are so compact.
Every style, side by side
Text Faces
Text face is the umbrella term, and it covers three families that are often treated as one. Western emoticons are read sideways, kaomoji are read upright, and Lenny-style faces borrow the kaomoji form without the Japanese origin. This page collects all three so the differences are visible at a glance.
:-)
Quick answer
Which one should you use?
Text faces are any face built from characters, which makes it broader than kaomoji, not a synonym for it. Western emoticons like :-) are read sideways and use only ASCII punctuation. Kaomoji like (´･ω･`) are read upright and draw on kana and borrowed letters, so they can manage arms and cheeks. Every kaomoji is a text face; not every text face is a kaomoji.
Copy and paste
24 text faces
Every face is plain text. Tap one to copy it, then paste it wherever you are typing — it travels as ordinary characters, not as an image.
:-)
Classic smiley
The original, proposed by Scott Fahlman in 1982. Read it sideways.
:-(
Classic frown
Fahlman's other proposal — originally for marking posts that were not jokes.
;-)
Wink
The same smiley with one eye closed; implies a joke or shared knowledge.
:-P
Tongue out
Playful or cheeky. The P is a tongue sticking out sideways.
XD
Laughing
Screwed-shut eyes and an open mouth — no nose or bracket needed.
:'(
Crying
The apostrophe is a tear running from the eye.
>:(
Angry
The angle bracket is a furrowed brow above the eyes.
:3
Cat smile
A rotated cat mouth. One of the few sideways faces borrowed back into kaomoji.
:-O
Surprise
A round open mouth; the sideways equivalent of (⊙_⊙).
:-/
Unsure
A slanted mouth — sceptical, awkward or unconvinced.
<3
Heart
Not a face at all, but the most-used text glyph of the emoticon era.
D:
Dismay
Reversed order, so the mouth comes first. Reads as alarm.
^_^
Happy
Upright but ASCII only — the bridge between emoticons and kaomoji.
-_-
Unimpressed
Flat eyes, flat mouth. Reads as enduring something.
o_O
Confused
Mismatched eyes; the classic sign that something is not computing.
T_T
Crying
The T characters are eyes with tears running down them.
>_<
Wincing
Eyes squeezed shut — pain, cringing or secondhand embarrassment.
=_=
Tired
Closed eyes drawn as double lines; more weary than -_-.
(´･ω･`)
Soft kaomoji
Upright, with kana doing the work. Nothing here is ASCII.
(＾▽＾)
Happy kaomoji
Full-width brackets give it room the ASCII faces do not have.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Shrug
The ツ is katakana used as a face; the arms are what ASCII cannot do.
ಠ_ಠ
Disapproval
Kannada letters as eyes — kaomoji raid all of Unicode for shapes.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Table flip
A whole scene, not a face. Only the upright form allows it.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Lenny face
Kaomoji in form, Finnish in origin. The third family.
How they are built
The parts these faces are made of
Kaomoji are assembled rather than drawn. Once you can see the components, you can adjust any face on this page instead of hunting for a different one.
Upright ASCII faces
^_^ -_- o_O T_T >_<
The bridge between the two traditions: read upright like a kaomoji, but built from ASCII like an emoticon. Common in early anime and gaming forums.
Kaomoji
(´･ω･`) (＾▽＾) ಠ_ಠ
Japanese, upright, and drawing on kana, CJK punctuation and borrowed scripts. The larger character set is what allows arms, cheeks and whole scenes.
Lenny-style
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Kaomoji form, Western origin, and the only family that needs combining marks. Whether it counts as a kaomoji depends on whether you define the word by shape or by history.
Before you paste
Getting them to arrive intact
Paste as plain text
Markdown and rich-text editors treat backslashes, underscores and asterisks as formatting. The upright ASCII faces are the worst affected here, because every one of them has an underscore mouth.
Sideways faces travel best
Western emoticons are pure ASCII, so they survive any encoding, font or field — including ones that strip everything else on this page. When a system is old or unknown, :-) is the safe choice.
Some clients auto-convert
Several chat apps silently replace :-) and :( with emoji images as you type. If you want the text form to stay text, turn off emoticon substitution in the app's settings.
Read more
Faces with a full write-up
Some of these have their own page covering where the face came from and how its meaning has shifted.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Lenny Face
A suggestive raised-eyebrow face with a long meme history.
Read the entry(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Table Flip
The internet's favourite tantrum: flipping a table in text.
Read the entryಠ_ಠ
Look of Disapproval
Two heavy-lidded eyes staring flatly across a single line.
Read the entryฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
Cat Kaomoji
A round cat face with two raised paws either side.
Read the entry
Questions
Text Faces FAQ
Are text faces the same as kaomoji?
No — text face is the broader term. It covers anything that makes a face out of characters, including Western emoticons like :-), kaomoji like (´･ω･`), and Lenny. Kaomoji are specifically the Japanese upright style, so every kaomoji is a text face but plenty of text faces are not kaomoji.
What is the difference between an emoticon and a kaomoji?
Direction and character set. Emoticons are read sideways and use only ASCII punctuation, so :-) needs a head tilt. Kaomoji are read upright and draw on kana, CJK brackets and letters borrowed from other scripts. That is how (´･ω･`) gets cheeks and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ gets arms. Emoticons came first, in 1982.
Is Lenny face a kaomoji?
By form yes, by origin no. It is built the way a kaomoji is — upright, bracketed, using borrowed characters — but it first appeared on the Finnish imageboard Ylilauta in November 2012, not in Japan. Most people call it a kaomoji anyway, which is reasonable if you define the word by shape and not by history.
What are text faces called?
It depends which family you mean. The sideways ones are emoticons or smileys, the Japanese upright ones are kaomoji (顔文字, face characters), and text faces or text emoticons is the umbrella term covering all of them. Emoji are something else entirely: single Unicode characters drawn as pictures, not assemblies of text.
Why do some text faces break when I paste them?
Most editors treat certain characters as formatting. Underscores turn text italic, asterisks turn it bold, and backslashes are read as escapes and removed, which is how ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ so often arrives with a missing arm. Pasting as plain text avoids all three.
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