How it works
Weird emoticons borrow their parts from three scripts: the eyes are a Lao letter, the nose is the Arabic letter lam and the brackets are a pair of Tibetan marks, as in ༼ຈل̮ຈ༽. Tap a face to copy it.
Read the full guide
Weird text faces, part by part
ຈ is Lao letter co, U+0E88, one for each eye. ل is Arabic letter lam, U+0644, with a small breve drawn under it, for the nose and mouth. ༼ and ༽ are a pair of Tibetan marks, U+0F3C and U+0F3D, that open and close the face. The note under each tile lists what that face borrows.
Why some devices show a box
A device needs a font for every script a face borrows from: Lao, Arabic, Tibetan and, for the flexed arms, Canadian syllabics. One with no font for a script draws an empty box in place of that character.
- The arms are borrowed too: ᕙ and ᕗ are Canadian syllabics, and ヽ is a Japanese repeat mark.
- The Lenny face and its relatives are on text faces.
Questions and answers
How do you make weird emoticons?
Put a Lao letter each side of an Arabic lam and close the face in Tibetan marks: ༼ຈل̮ຈ༽. No keyboard layout has all three scripts, so copy the face here, then change the arms or add a word.
How do you make the weird text face?
If you mean the one with raised arms, it is ヽ༼ຈل̮ຈ༽ノ, the first tile here. If you mean the Lenny face with its tilted brows, that one is on the text faces page.
What is weird smiley face text made of?
Characters from several scripts, used for their shapes and not their sounds. In ༼ຈ‿ຈ༽ the smile is an undertie, the eyes are Lao letters and the brackets are Tibetan marks.