Crying Kaomoji — 200+ Crying Lenny Faces to Copy
200 crying kaomoji, from a single tear to visible sobbing.
Crying kaomoji carry their intensity in the eye character, and swapping that one character moves a face between three quite different registers.
The eye character is the tear
╥ has the tear built into the shape — a vertical stroke below the eye. It is the standard crying eye and reads as genuine but composed.
ಥ is heavier. The Kannada character has more visual weight, so (ಥ_ಥ) reads as more overwhelmed than (╥_╥) even though the structure is identical.
T is the most stylised. (T﹏T) reads as comic rather than sincere, because the letter is recognisably a letter and the artificiality shows.
﹏ as a mouth is a wavering line — the mouth of someone trying not to cry and failing. Paired with any of the three eyes, it is what makes a face read as actively crying rather than merely sad.
Restraint reads as more genuine
This is counterintuitive and consistent. A face with a single tear and a closed mouth communicates real sadness better than one with flailing arms and scattered tear marks.
The dramatic versions are almost always comic — they are so far beyond the situation that the exaggeration is the joke, which suits a dropped sandwich rather than actual bad news.
If you are communicating something genuinely difficult, plain words work better than any face. These are for the smaller register.
Where they work
All render in WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, Discord and game chats. ╥ and T are supported everywhere; ಥ is a Kannada character with good but not universal support, and can show as a box on older Android.
For the restrained end see teary kaomoji, for the dramatic end sobbing kaomoji, for sadness without tears sad kaomoji, and for tears with a grin crying laughing kaomoji.
One convention specific to this family: the semicolon. (；_；) uses it as a tear running down one side, and it appears in faces that are otherwise neutral to add a single tear without changing the eyes. It is the lightest crying signal available.
Crying kaomoji is part of the wider kaomoji collection — see also bored kaomoji, shy kaomoji, sobbing kaomoji.
FAQ
What is the crying Lenny face?
The most copied are (ಥ﹏ಥ) and (╥﹏╥), both showing tears actively falling.
What is the difference between crying and teary faces?
Crying faces show tears falling. Teary faces show eyes welling up before anything falls — a quieter, more restrained expression.
Do crying faces work on Reddit?
Yes, but variants containing a backslash need it doubled, because Reddit’s markdown treats a single backslash as an escape character.