Shrug Kaomoji
Copy shrug kaomoji, from the classic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ shruggie to arm-shrug and lenny-eyed variants, for chats, comments, and captions.
Popular shrug kaomoji
Short, readable faces are usually the best fit for bios, usernames, and chat replies.
Shrug Kaomoji copy and paste
103 text faces shown in All.
Shrug Kaomoji ASCII art
Multi-line text art. Paste into a monospace field so the alignment survives.
Discord and group chats
Drop ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ when a question has no good answer, or reply to bad news without committing to a full sentence.
Reddit and forum comments
Shrug kaomoji are common shorthand for 'I don't know either' or 'not my problem' at the end of a comment.
Work chat and email sign-offs
A light shrug softens an uncertain answer without sounding dismissive, useful in Slack threads and quick replies.
Captions and status updates
Use a shrug face to caption an outcome you didn't plan for, from a bad hair day to a missed deadline.
How to use shrug kaomoji
Group chats and Discord
- Reply to an unanswerable question with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ instead of writing 'idk'
- Use ╮(ᵕ—ᴗ—)╭ when the shrug should read as content rather than confused
- Save the lenny-eyed ¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯ for joke replies, not sincere ones
Forum and Reddit comments
- Close a comment with 乁( •_•)ㄏ to signal 'not my problem' in fewer characters
- Pair ¯\_(⊙︿⊙)_/¯ with a genuinely confusing situation, not a dismissive one
- Avoid stacking a shrug with an argument; it reads best as the whole reply
Work chat and quick replies
- A flat ¯\_(-_-)_/¯ softens 'I don't know' without sounding careless
- Reserve angry-eyed variants like 乁༼ಠ益ಠ༽ㄏ for chats with close coworkers, not clients
- Paste rather than type the face, since typed backslashes sometimes get stripped by chat formatting
Captions and bios
- Short faces like ¯\(°_°)/¯ survive character limits better than the longer bracket variants
- A shrug caption works well on a post about a plan that didn't go as expected
- Test the face on mobile first; rare bracket characters can render as boxes on older devices
Shrug Kaomoji message templates
Copy a whole message for chats, captions, and comments.
Shrug Kaomoji meanings
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The original shruggie: two raised arms around a katakana tsu face. It means 'I don't know', 'not my problem', or 'who's to say', and works in almost any context where a real shrug would.
┐(´ー｀)┌
An older Japanese-style arm shrug using tilted brackets instead of a backslash. Reads as a softer, more resigned shrug than the classic, closer to 'well, what can you do'.
┐(￣ヘ￣)┌
The same arm posture with a flat, unimpressed mouth. Good for a shrug that carries mild annoyance rather than pure indifference.
¯\(°_°)/¯
A wide-eyed variant of the classic shrug. The round eyes read as more startled or bewildered than the neutral ツ, useful when the shrug is genuine confusion rather than apathy.
╮(ᵕ—ᴗ—)╭
A closed-eye, gently smiling arm shrug. This one reads as content or unbothered rather than confused, good for 'it is what it is' replies.
¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯
The classic shrug fused with the Lenny Face eyes. Reads as a smug or suggestive shrug, common in joke replies and meme threads rather than sincere ones.
乁( •_•)ㄏ
A minimal lenny-style shrug using 乁 and ㄏ as the arms instead of slashes. Short and flat, it reads as a quick 'meh' rather than confusion.
乁(⌐■_■)ㄏ
A sunglasses-eyed shrug, borrowed from the 'deal with it' meme. Signals cool indifference rather than genuine uncertainty, best used for jokes.
¯\_(-_-)_/¯
A flat-eyed shrug with no expression at all. About as neutral as a shrug gets, useful when you want to convey nothing beyond 'no comment'.
¯\_(⊙︿⊙)_/¯
Wide, worried eyes on the classic arm shape. This reads as genuine confusion or mild distress, not indifference, so save it for when you actually don't know what happened.
乁( ◕ ᴥ ◕ )ㄏ
A rounder, more animal-like face with a small mouth. Reads as innocent bewilderment, closer to 'I truly have no idea' than sarcasm.
┓( 〃 ◜ ∀ ◝ )┏
A wide grinning arm shrug with extra spacing that suggests movement. Works well for an exaggerated, theatrical 'oh well!' rather than a quiet one.
乁༼ಠ益ಠ༽ㄏ
An angry-eyed shrug using the ಠ_ಠ 'disapproval' eyes. This one carries irritation alongside the shrug, good for 'I give up dealing with this' rather than calm indifference.
¯\_(;-;)_/¯
A crying-eyed shrug. Signals resignation mixed with sadness, useful for bad news you have decided not to fight.
へ‿(•̀_•́)‿ㄏ
A determined, narrowed-eye shrug using the へ arm variant. Reads as a confident 'not my problem' rather than a confused one.
Related kaomoji clusters
Planned clusters become real internal links after each English page is published.
Shrug Kaomoji — background
Kaomoji are read upright, emoticons sideways
Western emoticons such as :-) developed on early ASCII systems where tilting your head was the cheapest way to see a face. Japanese users had access to a far larger character set through JIS encodings, so their faces never needed rotating. The shrug's ツ face and arm brackets only work because they are read straight on.
The brackets are borrowed from other alphabets
Characters that look purpose-built for text faces are usually loaned. ツ is Japanese katakana for the syllable 'tsu', 乁 and ㄏ come from Chinese input systems repurposed as arm shapes, and the Lenny Face eyes borrow diacritical marks meant for entirely different alphabets. Nobody designed them for shrugging; the community found shapes that fit.
The shruggie predates its own name
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ circulated on forums and imageboards for years as an anonymous piece of text before it acquired the nickname 'shruggie'. Its popularity grew from repeated copying rather than any single viral post, and it remains one of the few kaomoji recognized outside Japanese-language internet culture.
It needs an extra backslash to survive typing
Typed literally, \_(ツ)_/ can lose a character on platforms that treat backslash as an escape sequence or underscores as markdown italics. The doubled backslash in ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ that shows up in some copies is a workaround from users typing it directly into code or markdown fields, rather than an intentional variant.
Copying is the whole distribution mechanism
Kaomoji spread with no central registry, no approval body, and no version numbers, unlike emoji which need a Unicode proposal. The shrug's arm-bracket ancestors circulated in Japan for years before ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ became the dominant global variant, and both forms still coexist because enough people kept copying each one.
What does ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ mean?
It represents a person shrugging: the backslash and slash are raised arms, and ツ (a Japanese katakana character, not a real word) is a simple face. It is used to mean 'I don't know', 'who can say', or 'not my problem'.
Why is ツ used in the shrug face instead of a real face?
ツ is the katakana character 'tsu', chosen because its shape happens to look like a simple smiling or neutral face when placed between the arm brackets. It has no meaning as a word in this context; it is used purely for its shape.
How do I type the shrug emoji ¯\_(ツ)_/¯?
Tap it on this page to copy it as plain text. Typing it manually needs a backslash before ツ so chat apps do not read the underscore as formatting: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Some platforms strip the backslash automatically, which is why copy-paste is more reliable than typing it out.
Why does the shrug emoticon sometimes appear broken or missing an arm?
Some apps interpret the backslash as an escape character or the underscores as markdown for italics, which can delete part of the face. Pasting the whole string at once, rather than typing it, usually avoids this.
What is the difference between a shrug kaomoji and the 🤷 shrug emoji?
The 🤷 emoji is a single image character rendered differently on every platform. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ is plain text built from Unicode punctuation, so it looks identical everywhere and can be pasted into places that do not support image emoji, like plain-text fields or old software.
Are shrug kaomoji considered rude?
Context decides. In casual chat, a shrug is a neutral way to signal 'I don't know' without effort. In a formal reply or to someone you don't know well, it can come across as dismissive, so it works best in informal settings.
What is the arm-shrug style like ┐(´ー｀)┌?
It is an earlier Japanese kaomoji style that predates the now-more-common ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. It uses angled bracket characters for arms instead of a backslash and forward slash, and often carries a softer or more resigned tone.
What is a lenny-face shrug?
It combines the classic shrug arms with the eyes from ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), the 'Lenny Face' meme. The result reads as smug, suggestive, or joking rather than a sincere 'I don't know', and is mostly used in meme replies.
Can I use shrug kaomoji in usernames or bios?
Short versions like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ or 乁( •_•)ㄏ fit within most character limits. Longer decorated variants with extra bracket characters are more likely to get truncated or rejected by strict username validators.
How many shrug kaomoji are on this page?
There are 107 curated faces, grouped into the classic backslash-and-slash style, arm-bracket shrugs, lenny-eyed variants, and a few faces with an emoji accent.