( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

About

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) is an emoticon created with unicode character symbols. The face is often used to spam forums and image boards, similar to the Japanese word “desu”.

Origin

The exact origin of the emoticon is currently unclear. On November 18th, 2012, 4chan users raided the /r/Israel^[4] subreddit with posts spamming the “( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)” face (shown below), with some users referring to the emoticon as “le Palestine face.”

Spread

The same day, mods banned several 4chan users for spamming the emoticon on the site’s various image boards (shown below).

Redditor Dogcatcher1979 submitted a post titled “So I guess this is a thing now?” to the /r/4chan^[2] subreddit, which included a screenshot of the face being used in a 4chan thread (shown below). In the post, Redditor 8-bit_d-boy commented that the face resembled the children’s television show character Bob the Builder.

Also on November 18th, World of Warcraft Forums^[5] member Kuallius submitted a post titled “The Sha of Casuals ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)” and YouTuber cubegoat uploaded a video titled “( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)” (shown below, left). On the following day, cubegoat uploaded another video titled “Fresh ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) of /b/el Air,” featuring various animated versions of the emoticon accompanied by the theme song for the 1990’s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (shown below, right). As of November 19th, 2012, there are more than 50 Facebook pages containing “( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)” in the title on Facebook.^[1]

Search Interest

Not available.

External References