Where it comes from
It is one of the oldest Japanese-style (upright) kaomoji, built only from keys on a normal keyboard. The ^ shape copies the curved eyes of a big smile.
When to use it
It works almost anywhere a light, friendly tone fits, including casual work chat. In Korean chat the shorter ^^ is extremely common, and a lone ^^ after a stiff sentence can sometimes read as a forced smile.
Examples
- Thanks, that helps a lot ^_^
- See you at lunch ^_^
Variants to copy
What it is made of
Every character in the face with its Unicode code point — handy if one shows up as a box on a friend's phone.
^
U+005Ecircumflex accent_
U+005Flow line