The winking Lenny Face. This is a variant of the original “Lenny Face” meme — one of the most recognizable Western kaomoji on the internet. The ͡ marks are Combining Inverted Breve diacritics used as eyebrows arched suggestively. The ~ on the left is a winking eye (the universal squiggle for “closed in a wink”). The ͜ʖ is the iconic Lenny mouth — a small upward smirk made with Cyrillic letters. The ° on the right is a still-open round eye.
Lenny Face emerged on Finnish-speaking image boards around 2012 and exploded across Reddit and Twitch in 2014. The wink variant adds an extra layer of “I am winking at you about this” — the suggestive eyebrow arching combined with the closed eye conveys conspiratorial, knowing energy. It is internet meme-vocabulary, not Japanese kaomoji tradition.
Use it for “if you know you know” moments, suggestive jokes (carefully — context-dependent), and knowing-smirk replies. On Discord it works in chats where the in-joke is shared. On Reddit it lands in comments adding a layer of “wink wink, nudge nudge.” On Twitter/X it suits replies that imply the reader already gets the punchline. Avoid it in formal contexts and contexts where the suggestiveness would be unwelcome.
This kaomoji has Western-meme roots rather than Japanese. There is no direct Japanese equivalent, but the closest mood is ニヤリ (niyari — a sly grin) with a wink. Pair with phrases like “if you know you know” or “hehe” — keep the energy playful and conspiratorial.