¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Kaomoji: Emoji / Smiley in ASCII Symbols

History of kaomojis

These pictograms were created in Japan in the 1990s. They then spread at full speed through electronic messages, encouraged by the democratization of the web and mobile telephony. Emojis are now ubiquitous throughout the world.

At first, emojis were only textual such as :) or :(. It is DOCOMO, a Japanese mobile phone company, which is at the origin of the first pictorial emojis. We will then differentiate between emojis which are images and kaomojis which are a series of textual symbols. Finally, it was in 2010 that emojis were normalised and added to the Unicode standard to give the emojis we know best: 🙂 and 🙁. You can find the history and origins of emoji here.

Japanese style Kaomojis

Japanese users have popularised a style of emoticon (顔 文字, kaomoji, lit "face characters") that can be understood without tilting the head to the left. This style appeared on ASCII NET, an early Japanese online service, in 1986. Similar emoticons were used on the Byte Information Exchange (BIX) at about the same time.

Microsoft IME 2000 Japanese or later supports emoticon input as above by enabling the Microsoft IME Spoken Language / Emotion dictionary. In IME 2007, this support has been moved to the Emoticon dictionary. These dictionaries allow users to call emoticons by typing words that represent them.

The combination of Japanese and Western styles

English-language anime forums have adopted these Japanese-style emoticons that could be used with the standard ASCII characters available on Western keyboards. For this reason, they are often referred to as "anime style" emoticons in English. They have since been used in more common places, including online games, instant messaging and non-anime chat rooms. Emoticons such as <( ^.^ )>, <(^_^<), <(o_o<), <( -'.'- )>, <('.'-^)or (>';..;')>which include the parentheses, the mouth or nose, and the arms (especially those represented by the inequality signs) are also often called "Kirbys" in reference to their resemblance to the Kirby character from the Nintendo games. Parentheses are sometimes dropped when used in the context of the English language, and the mouth underscore can be extended as an intensifier for the emoticon in question, e.g. ^_________^ for very happy. The t(-_-t) emoticon uses the Eastern style, but incorporates a representation of the Western "middle finger stroke" by using a "t" for arm, hand and finger. The use of a sideways click for the nose as in (͡ ° ͜ʖ °) is thought to originate from the Finnish noticeboard based on the Ylilauta image, and is called a "Lenny face". Another apparently Western invention is the use of emoticons like *,..,* or `;..;' to indicate vampires or other mythical beasts with fangs.

Exposure to Western and Japanese style emoticons or kaomoji via blogs, instant messages and forums featuring a mix of Western and Japanese pop culture has resulted in many emoticons in vertical display format. Parentheses are often omitted and these emoticons generally use only alphanumeric characters and the most commonly used English punctuation marks. Emoticons such as -O-, -3-, -w-, '_', ;_;, T_T, :>and .V. are used to convey mixed emotions that are more difficult to convey with traditional emoticons. Characters are sometimes added to emoticons to convey anime or manga-style sweat, for example ^_^', !>_<!, <@>_____<@>;;, ;O;and*u*. The equal sign can also be used for closed-eye, forward-looking anime, e.g. =0=, =3=, =w=, =A= and =7=. The uwuvisage (and its variations UwUand OwO), is an emoticon of Japanese origin that denotes a cute expression or emotion felt by the user.

In Brazil, sometimes combination characters (accents) are added to emoticons to represent eyebrows, such as ò_ó, ó_ò, õ_o, ù_u or o_Ô.

The 2channel style

Users of the Japanese discussion forum 2channel developed a wide variety of unique emoticons using characters from various scripts, such as Kannada, as in ಠ_ಠ (for a look of disapproval, disbelief or confusion). These were quickly picked up by 4chan and spread to other Western sites soon after. Some took on a life of their own and became characters in their own right, like Monā.

Korean style Kaomoji

In South Korea, emoticons use Korean Hangul letters and the Western style is rarely used. The structures of Korean and Japanese emoticons are somewhat similar, but there are some differences. The Korean style contains Korean jamo (letters) instead of other characters. There are countless emoticons that can be formed with such combinations of Korean jamo letters. Consonant jamos ㅅ, ㅁor ㅂas the mouth/nose component and ㅇ, ㅎor ㅍfor the eyes. For example: ㅇㅅㅇ, ㅇㅂㅇ, ㅇㅁㅇand -ㅅ-. Faces such as 'ㅅ', 'ㅅ', 'ㅂ'and 'ㅇ', using inverted commas 'and apostrophes'are also commonly used combinations. Vowel jamos such as ㅜ, ㅠ represent a crying face. Example: ㅜㅜ, ㅠㅠand 뉴뉴(same function as T in Western style). Sometimes ㅡ (not an em-tiger "-" but a vowel Jamo), a comma or an underscore is added, and can be mixed the two character sets together, such as ㅜ.ㅜ, ㅠ.ㅜ, ㅠ.ㅡ, ㅜ_ㅠ, ㅡ^ㅜand ㅜㅇㅡ. Also, semicolons and carets are commonly used in Korean emoticons; semicolons mean sweating (embarrassed). If used with ㅡ or -, they represent a bad feeling. Examples: -;/, --^, ㅡㅡ;;;, -_-;;and -_^. However, ^^, ^오^ means smile (almost all people use it regardless of gender or age). Others include: ~_~, --a, -6-, +0+.

The ideographic Chinese style

The character 囧 (U + 56E7), which means "shiny", can be combined with the Orz posture emoticon, such as 囧 rz. The character existed in the Oracle bone script, but its use as an emoticon was documented as early as 20 January 2005.

Other ideographic variants for 囧 include 崮 (king 囧), 莔 (queen 囧), 一 (囧 with hat), 囧 興 (tortoise), 卣 (Bomberman).

The character 槑 (U + 69D1), which sounds like the word for "plum" (梅 (U + FA44)), is used to represent the double of 呆 (dull), or another magnitude of dullness. In Chinese, normally solid characters (as opposed to the stylistic use of 槑) can be duplicated to express emphasis.

Kaomoji / Russian Smiley

On the Russian-speaking Internet, the parenthesis ) is used as a smiley face. Several parentheses )))) are used to express more happiness, amusement or laughter. It is usually placed at the end of a sentence. The colon sign is omitted because it is in a less familiar position on the keyboard layout ЙЦУКЕН .