Not everyone will have heard of the term kaomoji. At the same time, the chances are quite high that you have seen them in use on the internet for a long time. It concerns creatively designed emoji, made up of ASCII characters and originating from Japan. What the history behind that is and how you apply kaomoji yourself, we explain here ♪(´▽｀)
We all know emoticons like 🙂 of course. They are powerful and have a long history. For example, in older paper publications, figures composed of typographic symbols have already appeared. In the 1970s, students – how could it be otherwise – created the first emoticons on the then common computer systems.
The ‘smileys’ really became known. The ‘inventor’ of these primal emoticons, which are still widely used today, is computer scientist Scott Fahlman. In 1982 he made use of 🙂 and 🙁 for the first time at the BBS of the Carnegie Mellon University. In the decades that followed, more and more such symbols were slowly invented. quickly as predefined ‘words’ in the first mobile phone calls.Handy for use in text messages.
However, traditional emoticons also have ‘disadvantages’. For example, you have to turn your head to see them ‘real’ as the intended symbol. In the same eighties of the last century, the Japanese showed their creativity once again: kaomoji (translated as ‘facial characters’) arose on a then popular online service there. There they also started simple, for example with ^_^. In fact a big improvement, because you don’t have to turn your head for it!
Soon the kaomoji became more and more refined. Especially because you are not tied to the standard character set of your own language, very complex ‘images’ can be built from ASCII characters. In fact, it has become a kind of art form.
Also read: Why are my emoji not showing?
Kaomoji keyboards and apps
If you are a seasoned user of kaomoji, then you can shake them out of your sleeve. Nevertheless, it is quite a complex matter, especially if you are indeed going to use characters from other languages.
Standard keyboards (including the virtual ones on a smartphone) do not support it. Which means that you have to install all kinds of different keyboards and switch between them continuously if you want to assemble really complex kaomoji.
Fortunately, in Windows these days it is very simple. Just press the key combination Windows sign + . (point)† The emoji panel opens. Click on the second option at the top next to the smiley. A world of kaomoji opens up to you, ready to be copied and pasted wherever you want. For example, in emails or on social media.
A kaomoji app for android that gets a lot of good reviews is Kaomoji – Japanese Emoticons† In addition, there is Emoji Place for iOS and iPadOS, we go into that in more detail below.
Kaomoji on iOS
For €2.99 you can unlock all available kaomoji in Emoji Place if you wish, and for another €2.99 you remove the ads. But first get started with the free basic version.
It works simply. After you start the app you will see a mountain of kaomoji ready, from various categories. Whereby it applies that you sometimes really have to use your imagination to see what exactly some copies represent. Some are really extremely abstract, but one learns by doing.
More practical is a tap on the button at the top left of the screen. Here you can choose from categories. For example, tap characters and you will find a whole series of examples that are easy to interpret even for us simple westerners, such as a series of ‘pudding figures’ like this: ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ.
Simply tap the desired character and then the share button. Then choose an app, or go for it To copy for universal use.
Incidentally, after inserting a kaomoji in, for example, a running sentence in a word processor, you should check whether the font is still correct after the kaomoji. Because the app uses a mix of fonts, the last instance used may not match what you’re using in the body text.
Sometimes the difference is very subtle, so check extra carefully to avoid creating a messy document. To avoid misery beforehand, you can also finish your sentence first and then stick the kaomoji in the desired place. In this way, you naturally retain the formatting of the current sentence and only the kaomoji part will be different.
Part of Japanese culture
If the style of the kaomoji reminds you somewhat of manga, then that is not very strange. In the early days, they were mainly used by young girls and fans of manga in their text-based communication.
Kaomoji are not just a means of communicating emotions; in Japan it has also become a culture form. You can find them on murals, clothing, fashion accessories and much more. And you can now make full use of it thanks to apps like the ones mentioned above. However, there are more such apps out there, just search for kaomoji in your device’s app store.
Note that this is not an orphaned app that has not been updated for years; that often doesn’t work well with more modern apps in terms of sharing. You will also miss newer developments. Also avoid the apps of unclear origin that have few downloads. Obviously to prevent annoying issues regarding spyware and the like.
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