pastefont
Kaomoji
Tap any symbol to copy it. 24 text symbols.
Text symbols
Where these symbols come from
Kaomoji are a Japanese invention from the 1980s, built on a key difference from Western emoticons: they read upright rather than sideways, so the eyes carry the expression instead of the mouth. They draw on Japanese punctuation, Katakana, and whatever else fits — ツ in ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ is simply the Katakana syllable tsu. They are grouped by what the face is doing rather than by what it means. Happy faces lean on curved eyes, (◕‿◕) and (≧◡≦). Distress uses the same eyes inverted or weeping, (｡•́︿•̀｡) and (T_T). Animals swap the outer brackets for ears, ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ for a bear and (ᵔᴥᵔ) for a dog. Action kaomoji add arms outside the face, which is where the table flip (╯°□°)╯︵┻━┻ and the hug (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ come from. The arms are the reason these grew so long: each one is a separate character doing structural work.
What people use them for
Chat, comments and Discord, where a kaomoji carries tone that an emoji cannot — resignation, mock outrage, smugness. The table flip ╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ is probably the single most reproduced piece of text art on the internet. Typing them by hand is impractical, which is the entire reason pages like this one exist. The characters come from Japanese punctuation, Katakana, Thai vowel marks and the IPA, and no keyboard layout puts them within reach. Japanese IMEs are the exception: typing かお (kao, face) offers a kaomoji list, which is how the convention spread in the first place.
How to copy kaomoji
- Tap or click the symbol you want. It goes straight to your clipboard — no selecting, no long press.
- Paste it wherever you need it: a bio, a message, a document, a spreadsheet.
Known problems
Kaomoji are long: the table flip runs to 15 characters, which fills a short bio on its own. They also break badly in proportional fonts, where the alignment that makes the face work falls apart.
These are not fonts, they are separate Unicode characters. Screen readers often read them wrong or skip them entirely. What that means.
Common questions
- How do I copy a symbol on my phone?
- Tap it. Every symbol on this page copies to your clipboard on a single tap, with no selection or long press needed. Nothing is sent anywhere — the copying happens in your browser.
- Why does a symbol show as an empty rectangle?
- The font on that device does not cover the character. There is no fallback: for a reader whose font lacks it, the symbol is simply missing. Older Android builds and minimal desktop setups are where this happens most.