Text Faces and Emoticons

Three families of text faces

• Sideways emoticons. The classic :), :D and ;). You tilt your head to read them. Many apps turn them into emoji automatically.
• Kaomoji. Upright faces from Japan, like (*^_^*). You read them straight on, and the eyes carry the emotion.
• Meme faces. Big, loud faces made famous by internet culture, like the lenny face, the shrug and the table flip.

Dongers

Dongers are a style of meme face with huge raised arms and a dramatic expression. They often use ᕦ ᕤ or ᕙ ᕗ as flexing arms, as in ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ, and the Kannada letter ಠ for a hard, staring eye, as in ლ( ಠ_ಠ ლ). People spam them in fast chats to cheer, raise hype or celebrate a big moment. They are loud on purpose, so they fit live chats and gaming servers better than quiet DMs. Most dongers use rare characters and carry the “may not show on older devices” label.

Which one should you use?

Pick by place and mood. In a quick text to a parent, a sideways smiley is clear to everyone. With friends who like cute things, a kaomoji says more. In a meme-heavy server, a donger or table flip gets a laugh. If an app blocks special symbols, use faces made only of keyboard characters, which you can find on the ASCII faces page.

Questions