Happy Kaomoji (* ^ ω ^)
Japanese text faces for happy. Tap to copy.
Tip · press and hold to pick several at once
How to use happy kaomoji
A kaomoji is read straight on, and that is the whole difference from a western emoticon: :-) has to be tilted ninety degrees before it becomes a face, while (≧◡≦) already is one. The eyes carry the expression — ^ ^ for a squint, ≧ ≦ for a squeezed grin, ▽ for an open mouth — which is why a happy face can be built without a single letter.
These are ordinary characters, so they paste anywhere text goes. The catch is length: a TikTok bio allows 80 characters and (o^▽^o) spends nine of them, so two or three faces are a design choice and six are most of your bio. Japanese punctuation like ｡ and ・ counts too, and the wide forms ｏ ｗ take one character each despite looking like two.
Questions
How do I read a kaomoji?
Straight on, no head tilt. The middle of the face is the mouth and the two marks around it are the eyes: (´ ∀ `) is a wide smile, (≧◡≦) is a happy squint, (* ^ ω ^) has the ω mouth that gives the cat-like look. The outer brackets are the face itself.
Why do some happy faces have ^ ^ for eyes?
It is the standard shorthand for eyes closed by smiling — the same idea as drawing them as two upward curves. ^ ^ reads as cheerful, ≧ ≦ as laughing harder, and dot eyes like ・ ・ read as neutral until the mouth changes them.
Are these the same as emoji?
No. An emoji is a single coloured character drawn by your device; a kaomoji is several ordinary characters standing side by side, so it stays the colour of your text and never turns into a picture. That also means it survives places where emoji are stripped out.
Want this as an app?
Every set offline, right in your keyboard. Drop your email and I'll tell you when it's out — nothing else, ever.