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Text Faces to Copy and Paste

Text faces are expressions drawn with keyboard and Unicode characters, from the Western emoticon :-) to the Japanese kaomoji (^_^) and meme faces such as the lenny face and the shrug. Pick a type below, tap to copy it, and paste it anywhere that accepts text.

By Maya Chen, lettering designer and type educator · Checked by Jordan Hale · · How we review content

Key facts

  • Text faces fall into three families: Western emoticons such as :-), Japanese kaomoji such as (^_^), and internet meme faces such as the lenny face and the shrug.
  • The first documented proposal to use :-) for jokes and :-( for serious messages was a post by Scott Fahlman at Carnegie Mellon University on 19 September 1982.
  • Emoticons are read sideways and are plain ASCII, while kaomoji are read upright and use a much wider range of characters.
  • A face is only as dependable as its least common character, because eyes, mouths and marks can come from different Unicode blocks.
  • Chat formatting can eat the shrug's backslash and underscores, which turns ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ into a face missing its arm.
  • Screen readers may read every character in a face by name, so keep the message in plain words and add one face at the end.

What are the three kinds of text faces?

A text face is a picture drawn with characters. There are three families, and they come from different places.

Emoticons

Emoticons are the Western kind. They are typed from keyboard characters and read sideways: :-) is a smile, :-( is a frown, ;-) is a wink. The first documented proposal to use :-) for jokes and :-( for serious messages was a post by Scott Fahlman at Carnegie Mellon University on 19 September 1982. They are plain ASCII, so they work in any text field.

Kaomoji

Kaomoji are the Japanese kind. The word comes from the Japanese words for face and character, and kaomoji are read upright, so (^_^) is a face that looks at you. They grew out of Japanese online communities, in the 1980s according to commonly cited accounts, and they use a much wider range of characters: Japanese letters, punctuation, symbols and sometimes combining marks. Their expressive range is bigger because the eyes, mouth and cheeks can each use a different character. See our kaomoji page.

Internet meme faces

Internet meme faces are the third family. The lenny face ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), the shrug ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and the table flip (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ were made popular by forums and chat apps, and are now widely shared. Each has its own page, listed in the next section.

Which face should I open first?

  • Kaomoji: upright Japanese faces grouped by happy, sad, animal and surprised, with how they are built and where they break.
  • Lenny face: the face and its variants, with a note on the combining characters that break in some apps.
  • Shrug: the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ shrug and variants, with a fix for the missing arm in chat apps.
  • Table flip: the flip, the unflip and variants, with the Unicode parts of each face.

What are the characters in a face made of?

The characters inside a face come from many Unicode blocks. The eyes in ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) are a degree sign, the nose is a Latin letter, and the arcs above and below are combining characters, which attach to the preceding character. The shrug’s mouth is a Japanese katakana letter. The table flip uses box-drawing lines. That mix of origins is why faces are fragile. A face is only as dependable as its least common character.

The Unicode name for each piece, and its code point, is what a search tool, a font or a screen reader works from. On the individual pages we label each face in plain words, because a whole face is a string and has no single Unicode name. For single characters that you can use in your own faces, such as eyes and mouths, see the smiley symbols and cute symbols pages.

Why do some faces break or show boxes?

Four problems account for most failures:

  1. Missing glyphs. A device without a font for, say, Kannada ಠ shows a box.
  2. Combining marks. Marks such as ͡ and ͜ rely on the text renderer. Some apps draw them too high, too low or detached from their base.
  3. Markdown and formatting. The shrug’s backslash and underscores can be eaten by chat formatting, which turns ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ into a face missing its arm.
  4. Line wrapping. Long faces split in the middle on narrow screens.

The fix is usually to prefer short faces and test them in the app where they will be read.

How do I use faces responsibly?

Text faces read badly for people who use screen readers, which may announce each character by name. Keep a plain-language message as the main content, and add the face afterwards, one at a time. The fancy text accessibility guide explains how this works and what to avoid. For limits on how many characters different apps accept, see character limits.

If you want text that is decorated in a more typographic way, try the text decorator, or browse symbol collections for stars, hearts and dividers that sit around a face. Whichever text faces you choose, keep one face per message and test it where it will be read.

Frequently asked questions

Basics

What is the difference between an emoticon and a kaomoji?
An emoticon is a sideways face typed from keyboard characters, such as :-). A kaomoji is an upright face, such as (^_^), and usually uses characters from beyond the basic keyboard set. Western emoticons are read by tilting your head, while kaomoji are read as they appear. Both are plain text, not images.
Who proposed the smiley :-)?
The first documented proposal to use :-) for jokes and :-( for serious messages was a post by Scott Fahlman at Carnegie Mellon University on 19 September 1982. Emoticons like these are plain ASCII, so they work in any text field. We say first documented because earlier uses may have existed.
Where did kaomoji come from?
Kaomoji come from Japanese online communities, in the 1980s according to commonly cited accounts. The name combines the Japanese words for face and character. Because each eye, mouth and cheek can be a different character, including Japanese letters, punctuation and symbols, their range of expression is much bigger than that of Western emoticons.
What is the lenny face made of?
The eyes in ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) are degree signs, the nose is a Latin letter, and the arcs above and below are combining characters that attach to the character before them. Combining marks depend on the text renderer, so some apps draw them too high, too low or detached.
What is a table flip?
The table flip (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ is a meme face, and the unflip ┬─┬ノ( º _ ºノ) puts the table back. Both use box-drawing lines, which most fonts carry. The table flip page lists the Unicode parts of each face and the variants.

Where it works

Do text faces count as one character in a limit?
No. A face is made of many characters, and some use combining marks that apps count separately, so a 10-symbol face can take more than 10 units. Limits vary by app and are rarely documented, so test the face in the actual field.
Which characters can I use to build my own face?
Single characters work as eyes, mouths and cheeks. The smiley symbols page lists smiley characters with Unicode names, and the cute symbols page has tiny hearts, clouds and sparkles. Keep to common characters, since a face is only as dependable as its least common one.

How it works

Why do some text faces show boxes or look broken?
Many faces use characters from other writing systems, such as Kannada, Japanese or Arabic letters, and some use combining marks that attach to the character before them. If the app or font lacks a character, or places a combining mark badly, the face breaks. Shorter faces made from common characters are the most reliable.
How do I copy and paste a text face?
Open the page for the family you want, tap the face to copy it, then paste it into your message, bio or document. If it shows boxes or breaks apart, try a shorter face made from common characters. Faces with combining marks or characters from other writing systems are the most fragile.

Tips & limits

Are text faces accessible to screen reader users?
Not very. A screen reader may read each character in the face, or skip some, so a short face can become a long string of odd names. Put the plain words first, use one face at the end, and avoid long rows of them.
Why does the shrug lose its arm?
The shrug ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ contains a backslash and underscores, which chat formatting reads as Markdown and removes. The face then loses an arm. The shrug page has a fix for Markdown, Slack, Discord and Reddit, plus the shrug emoji.
Why do long text faces split on a phone?
Long faces wrap in the middle on narrow screens because the app breaks lines at spaces. The fix is usually to choose a shorter face, which also has fewer characters that might be missing from a font. Test any face in the app where it will be read before relying on it.