Emoticons & Smileys Symbols

About Emoticons & Smileys

Last reviewed on May 7, 2026

The face emoji on this page come from the Emoticons block (U+1F600–U+1F64F), introduced in Unicode 6.0. Earlier text-style smileys built from punctuation — like :-) and ;-) — are not included; these are the proper colored emoji that render as a yellow face on most modern devices.

Why the same emoji can look different

Emoji are encoded as code points; their appearance is decided by the platform's emoji font. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and others draw the same code point with their own house style. The grinning face on iOS is a slightly different illustration from the grinning face on Android. The meaning is the same; the personality changes.

This explains the well-known “why does the smile look different on my friend's phone” experience. Nothing is broken — the receiving device is rendering the character with its own font.

Color presentation and the variation selector

Some emoji also exist as text-style glyphs (black-and-white, line-drawn). The convention is that following the code point with U+FE0F forces emoji presentation, while U+FE0E forces text presentation. Most platforms default the emoji-block faces to color presentation, so the variation selector is only needed for older characters that started life as monochrome dingbats.

Common faces and what people read into them

Like all language, emoji acquire connotations from how they are used.

• Grinning face — a wide, happy greeting; reads as enthusiastic.
• Slightly smiling face — closed-mouth smile; reads as polite, sometimes flat. In some communities it has picked up a sarcastic tone.
• Face with tears of joy — laughter; one of the most-used emoji globally.
• Smiling face with smiling eyes — warm and genuine.
• Smiling face with sunglasses — cool, confident, often joking.
• Confused / pensive / disappointed — mild negative; useful for soft disagreement.
• Pouting face — strong anger; reserve for stronger reactions.
• Smiling face with horns — mischievous, playful misbehavior.

Skin tone and other modifiers

The smiley faces in this category do not take skin-tone modifiers — they are designed to be color-neutral yellow. People emoji (waving hand, thumbs up, runner) do support tone modifiers from the Fitzpatrick scale.

Searching and accessibility

Screen readers announce emoji by their Unicode CLDR short name, which is usually descriptive: “grinning face,” “face with tears of joy.” If an emoji carries meaning that the name does not capture — for example, using a salt-shaker emoji to mean “saltiness” in slang — consider adding an accompanying text caption for accessibility.

Face emoji often appear next to hearts and decorative ornaments. The text generator wraps captions and short messages with face-friendly borders.

Practical guides

For typing face emoji on a phone, see how to type symbols on iPhone and Android. If a recent emoji is rendering as a square box, the tofu rendering guide explains the cause and the fix.