Shrug Emoticon ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The classic “I don’t know” shrug, how to stop it losing an arm, and its cute, smug and tired cousins.
191 faces. Tap a card to copy, ♡ to save. Faces marked “may not show on older devices” use rarer symbols.
What is in the shrug
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ is made of: a macron ¯ for each hand, a backslash and underscores for the arms, and the Japanese character ツ (read “tsu”) as a smiling face. Shoulders up, hands out: “I don’t know”, “oh well” or “whatever happens, happens”.
Why the arm goes missing
In apps that use Markdown formatting, such as Discord, the backslash is a special character. It tells the app “show the next character as plain text”, so the backslash itself disappears and the shrug loses its left arm. The underscores can also turn part of your message into italics.
The fix is to add extra backslashes so the app shows them: ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯. You do not need to type that. Use the Discord-safe copy on this site and it adds them for you. Discord also has a /shrug command that adds the shrug to the end of your message.
Shrugs with a twist
- Cute shrug:
┐(｡･ω･｡)┌uses corner pieces as arms and has no backslash, so it never breaks. - Happy shrug:
╮( ´ ▽ ` )╭, “oh well!” with a smile. - Unamused shrug:
¯\_(눈_눈)_/¯. The eyes are 눈, the Korean word for eye. - Cat shrug: a kitty raising both paws.
Save it for later
If you shrug a lot, save it as a text shortcut. On iPhone, go to Settings, General, Keyboard, Text Replacement, and add it with a short code like “shrugg”. Then the full shrug appears whenever you type that code.
Questions
Why does my shrug lose an arm?
Apps like Discord treat the backslash as a formatting character and hide it. Use the Discord-safe copy, which adds extra backslashes.
What is the face in the middle of the shrug?
ツ is the Japanese katakana character tsu. Its shape looks like a smiling face.
Is there a shrug that never breaks?
Yes. Shrugs with corner arms, like ┐(｡･ω･｡)┌, have no backslash or underscore, so formatting cannot change them.
Does Discord have a shrug command?
Yes. Typing /shrug in Discord adds the shrug to the end of your message.