Where it comes from
The ￣ are full-width overlines drawn as narrowed eyes and ー is the katakana long-vowel mark used as a tight, closed smile. In Japanese it is often paired with ニヤリ, the sound of a sly grin.
When to use it
Use it after winning a bet, making a clever point, or teasing a friend. It can read as cocky, so avoid it when someone is actually upset.
Examples
- Called it. The butler did it (￣ー￣)
- Who's the chess champion now (￣ー￣)
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+0028left parenthesis￣
U+FFE3fullwidth macronー
U+30FCkatakana-hiragana prolonged sound mark)
U+0029right parenthesis