The shrug-Lenny: ‘I don’t know, but I am smug about it.’ The ¯ macrons on each side are tilted shoulders raised in a shrug, the and / slashes are the arms going up, and the underscores _ are hands extended palms-up. Between them, the famous Lenny face with ͡° wide eyebrows, ͜ʖ knowing curved mouth, and ͡° matching second eye.
This is arguably the single most-used kaomoji on English-language Discord servers. The combination of the shrug gesture (“I don’t know”) and the Lenny face (“but I am being suggestive about it”) makes it work for everything from ‘whatever, your call’ to ‘I’m pretending not to know what we’re really talking about.’ It is the kaomoji equivalent of an arched eyebrow and a verbal ‘I guess.’
Use it as a response to ambiguous questions, as a way to gracefully refuse to commit to a position, or to add a knowing wink to an otherwise neutral message. On Discord it is one of the first kaomoji new members learn. On Twitter/X and Reddit it has the same status. Avoid in contexts where ‘sincere’ is the right tone — Lenny is always at least slightly tongue-in-cheek.
In Japanese the matching gesture is しらない (shiranai — ‘I don’t know’) with a shrug. Pair this kaomoji with phrases like さあね (‘saa ne’ — ‘who knows’), どっちでも (‘docchi demo’ — ‘either is fine’), or just leave it as the entire response.