Kaomoji
Sad kaomoji, from a sigh to full sobs
Sad kaomoji are text faces for disappointment and tears, such as (T_T) for crying and (´・ω・`) for feeling let down. Online they mostly mark small letdowns, a sold-out drop or a cancelled plan, often half in jest. The sets below run from mildly deflated to wailing. Tap a face to copy it.
45 to copy · Updated 6 October 2026
Let down and deflated · 12
Teary and crying · 11
Sobbing and wailing · 8
Hurt and heartbroken · 7
Korean-style tears · 7
Ready-made lines for bios and captions
How a text face cries
Sad kaomoji put nearly all the feeling in the eyes. A capital T is a closed eye with a tear running straight down from it, so (T_T) cries with nothing else to help. Other faces borrow letters and signs that happen to have drops, loops or hanging lines in the right places, and a few use brackets from vertical Japanese text as frowning mouths.
| Piece | What it really is | What it draws |
|---|---|---|
| T | The capital letter T | A shut eye over a stream of tears |
| ╥ | A box-drawing piece with two lines hanging down | Tears running down both cheeks |
| ಥ | The Kannada letter tha (U+0CA5) | An eye brimming with a tear |
| 〒 | The Japanese postal mark | A screwed-shut eye with a tear dropping from it |
| ㄒ | Bopomofo letter X, from the phonetic alphabet used to teach Mandarin in Taiwan | A tear-streaked eye |
| ︵ ︿ ︹ | Brackets shaped for vertical Japanese and Chinese text | Lying flat in a line of ordinary text, a downturned mouth |
| ﹏ | A wavy low line | A trembling mouth |
| ‸ | A caret, the proofreader’s mark for “insert here” | A small, pinched mouth |
How sad do you mean?
| How you feel | Try | How it reads |
|---|---|---|
| A little let down | (´・ω・`) (◞‸◟) | A sigh, nothing serious |
| Sulking | (︶︹︶) ( ˘︹˘ ) | Sad with a touch of grumpy |
| About to cry | (ಥ_ಥ) (ಡ‸ಡ) | Holding it together, just |
| Crying | (T_T) (╥_╥) | Upset and letting it show |
| Sobbing for laughs | 。゜゜(´Ｏ`) ゜゜。 | So over the top that it reads as a joke |
| Happy and sad at once | (ಥ‿ಥ) | Moved: a farewell, a kind message, a finished project |
| Wiped out | _(:3 」∠)_ (×_×) | Too tired to be properly sad |
Size works against sincerity. The bigger and wetter the face, the more it sounds like a performance, which is exactly why people save the wailing ones for a burnt dinner. A single small (T_T) after a plain sentence is the one most likely to be taken as real.
Korean ㅠㅠ and ㅜㅜ
Korean chat cries without brackets. ㅠ (yu) and ㅜ (u) are Hangul vowel letters, and their short downward strokes hang like tears under closed eyes. ㅠㅠ is the everyday form, more letters mean more upset, and a letter in the middle becomes a mouth, so ㅠㅅㅠ pouts. You will see them well beyond Korea too, especially among fans of Korean music and dramas, often at the end of an English sentence.
Because they are letters, they take on the font of the words around them, and a screen reader may pronounce them as Korean sounds instead of describing tears. Let the words before them carry the meaning.
When to leave the face out
Sad faces suit small, shared letdowns. Next to real grief they sit badly: after a death, an illness or a break-up, a few plain words show more care than any arrangement of brackets and tears.
Businesses face a smaller version of the same problem. A face can soften your own news, as in “sold out again (｡•́︿•̀｡) more on Thursday.” A crying face in reply to a customer’s complaint can look like mockery, though, so solve the problem in words and skip the face.
Tip: Screen readers may spell a face out piece by piece, and 。゜゜(´Ｏ`) ゜゜。 alone is 12 characters of punctuation and marks. Say what happened first and let the face follow.
Questions people ask
What does (T_T) mean?
It is a crying face. Each T is a closed eye with a tear running straight down, and the underscore is the mouth. It can be sincere or mock-tragic, and the words around it tell you which. Without brackets it is written T_T, or just TT.
What does ㅠㅠ mean?
Crying, or being deeply moved, written the Korean way. ㅠ is the Hangul vowel yu, and two of them look like eyes with tears falling. It can also sound like pleading, as in “please answer ㅠㅠ”. ㅜㅜ, made from the vowel u, means much the same.
What does _(:3 」∠)_ mean?
Someone flopped on the floor, worn out or giving up for the day. Read it as a figure lying on its side: :3 is the face, 」 an arm and ∠ the bent legs, with the underscores as the floor. It is for tiredness and small defeats rather than real sadness.
What is the difference between (T_T) and (ToT)?
The mouth. In (T_T) the underscore is a closed mouth, so the crying is quiet. In (ToT) the o is an open mouth, so it reads as crying out loud. Both use only ordinary keyboard keys, so they display on any phone.
Should I use a sad kaomoji in a condolence message?
Better not. Most sad kaomoji are used for small, half-joking letdowns, so they can make a serious message sound light. For a loss, plain words such as “I’m so sorry, I’m thinking of you” say far more.
Related pages
More symbols and text art
Styled your caption? Let DMFast answer the comments
When someone comments a word like LINK, DMFast replies under the comment and sends them a DM, on Instagram and Facebook. Free plan, no card.
Start free