ASCII art — the practice of creating images and designs using printable characters. Kaomoji evolved directly from this tradition. While Western ASCII art focused on large-scale pictures, Japanese creators on platforms like 2channel refined the art of single-line character faces, eventually developing the rich kaomoji vocabulary we know today.

#ascii #art #textart #creative #japanese #design

2channel (2ちゃんねる) — the legendary Japanese anonymous bulletin board founded by Hiroyuki Nishimura in 1999. This is where kaomoji culture truly flourished. Users created increasingly elaborate text emoticons to express emotions without images, giving rise to iconic faces like (´・ω・`) and ヽ(´ー｀)ノ that spread worldwide.

#2channel #japan #internet #culture #kaomoji #anonymous

History of emoticons from Scott Fahlman's original :-) in 1982 to today. Key distinction: Western emoticons are read sideways while Japanese kaomoji like (^_^) are read face-on — reflecting cultural differences in how emotions are perceived through eyes vs mouth.

#emoticon #history #text #communication #smiley