What are kaomoji?
Kaomoji are Japanese emoticons built from punctuation, Japanese kana, and other Unicode characters. They became popular on Japanese bulletin boards in the 1980s and 1990s and are now used all over the world in chats, games and social media. Because they are plain text, they never need an image and you can tweak them however you like.
How a kaomoji is built
Most kaomoji have the same parts: brackets for the face ( ), eyes such as ^ ^, ◕ ◕ or T T, a mouth such as ‿, ω or ▽, and optional arms or extras like ヽ ノ, ♡ or ☆. Change the eyes and the whole emotion changes.
How to copy and paste kaomoji
- Find a face — scroll the list or type in the search box (for example cat, love or cry).
- Tap or click it — the face is copied to your clipboard right away and a “Copied!” label appears.
- Paste it anywhere — press Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on Mac) or long-press and choose Paste on your phone.
Frequently asked questions
What does kaomoji mean?
Kaomoji (顔文字) is Japanese for “face characters” — 顔 (kao) means face and 文字 (moji) means characters. They are emoticons drawn with text.
How are kaomoji different from emoticons like :-)?
Western emoticons are read sideways, :-) . Kaomoji are read upright, (^_^), and focus on the eyes rather than the mouth. They often use Japanese and other Unicode characters for extra detail.
How do I type kaomoji on my phone?
The easiest way is to copy them from this page. On iPhone you can also add the Japanese Kana keyboard, which has a ^_^ kaomoji list; many Android keyboards like Gboard include a kaomoji tab too.
Can I use kaomoji in usernames?
Yes, in most apps. Some games limit which characters are allowed in names, so shorter kaomoji and single symbols such as ツ work best there.