What are kaomoji?
Kaomoji (顔文字, “face characters”) are Japanese emoticons built from text. Unlike Western smileys such as :) that you read sideways, kaomoji are upright and put the expression in the eyes: (^_^) is happy, (T_T) is crying, (￣ー￣) is smug. They mix Japanese punctuation, full-width letters and symbols from many alphabets, which is why they can show so much feeling.
How to use kaomoji
Tap any face to copy it, then paste it into a message, a stream title, a username or a social media bio. Use the search box to filter by mood or animal (for example “cat”, “bear” or “table flip”), or press Random when you can't decide. The faces you copied last are remembered in this browser so you can reuse your favorites quickly.
Kaomoji vs emoji
Emoji are single pictures drawn by your phone or computer, so they look different on every platform. Kaomoji are plain text, so they look roughly the same everywhere and work in places that don't support emoji, such as old forums, game chats and terminals.
Is my text private?
Yes. Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you type here is sent to any server.