Kissing Face Emoji

A yellow face with simple open eyes and puckered lips, as if giving a kiss. Or whistling. That's the identity crisis of 😗: it's officially the "Kissing Face," but a significant number of people read it as a whistle. The puckered lips without any heart, without any closed eyes, without any blush, leave the face doing something ambiguous with its mouth and not committing to an interpretation.

😗 is the plainest member of the four-emoji kissing family: 😗 (open eyes, no extras), 😘 (winking with a heart), 😚 (closed eyes, rosy cheeks), and 😙 (smiling eyes). It's the least romantic of all of them. Emojipedia notes that 😗 is "almost never used in messages with the word love for a partner." It's the kiss you give your aunt at Thanksgiving, not the kiss you text at midnight.

And here's the late-arrival twist: 😗 was added in Unicode 6.1 (2012), two years after 😘 and 😚 shipped in Unicode 6.0 (2010). The romantic kisses got standardized first. The platonic kiss arrived as an afterthought. By the time 😗 showed up, 😘 already owned the kissing category.

😗 lives in the gap between a kiss and a whistle, and most people don't know which gap they're in.

As a kiss: it's the friendliest, most casual kiss emoji available. "Thanks for picking up dinner 😗" or "Good morning 😗" or "Night 😗" from a family member or close friend. No romantic charge. No intensity. The open eyes make it feel oddly alert for a kiss, which is why it reads more like a peck on the cheek than a real kiss.

As a whistle: pair 😗 with a musical note (😗🎵) and it instantly reads as someone whistling innocently. "I definitely didn't eat your leftovers 😗🎵" or "Nothing to see here 😗." This is the mischief reading, the person casually walking away from the scene of a crime. Some people only use 😗 for this meaning and don't associate it with kissing at all.

In cultures where cheek kissing is a standard greeting (France's la bise, Italy's two-cheek kiss, Spain and Portugal's similar customs), 😗 might feel more natural as a casual greeting emoji. A 2022 study in the journal Intercultural Pragmatics found that Spanish WhatsApp users included kissing emojis at the end of conversations more frequently than German users, reflecting how physical kiss greetings translate into digital communication.

Google Trends tells the story: 😘 scores 70-92 in search interest. 😗 sits at 8-13. When people want a kiss emoji, they reach for the one with the heart.

Almost always friendly. 😗 is specifically designed to NOT be romantic. It's the kiss emoji you use when you want to express affection without sending signals. The open eyes, the lack of a heart, the neutral expression all scream 'platonic.' If someone wanted to flirt, they'd use 😘 (which has a winking eye and a heart) or even 😚 (which has closed eyes suggesting intimacy). 😗 is the safety kiss.

• •If they use 😘 for others but 😗 for you, it might mean they see you as a friend
• •If paired with 🎵 or 🎶, it's definitely whistling, not kissing
• •Context matters: late-night 😗 hits differently than midday 😗

Unicode 6.0 (2010) included two kissing faces: 😘 Face Blowing a Kiss (with a winking eye and a heart) and 😚 Kissing Face with Closed Eyes (with rosy cheeks and shut eyes). Both were clearly romantic. The committee apparently realized there was no way to send a non-romantic kiss, the kind of peck you give a friend goodbye or your kid goodnight, without accidentally sending a love letter.

😗 arrived in Unicode 6.1 (2012) to fill that gap. Plain open eyes, no heart, no blush. Just lips doing something that could be a kiss or could be a whistle. It's the Switzerland of kissing emojis: neutral enough to offend no one, memorable enough to be forgotten by everyone.

The whistling interpretation wasn't in the Unicode description ("KISSING FACE" doesn't mention whistling), but users adopted it organically. The open eyes plus puckered lips look less like a kiss and more like someone about to whistle a tune. Emojipedia notes the dual reading, and some emoji reference sites list "whistling" as a primary meaning rather than a secondary one.

The cultural context for kiss-as-greeting is enormous. In France, la bise (the greeting kiss) varies from two cheeks (most of France) to three (Provence) to four (Nantes). In Italy, two kisses starting from the left cheek. In Russia, three. In the Netherlands, three. The number of kisses, which cheek to start with, and whether lips actually touch the cheek all vary by region. 😗 is the digital version of this greeting: a kiss that isn't really a kiss, just a gesture of social warmth.

Approved in Unicode 6.1 (2012) as U+1F617U+1F617 KISSING FACE. Added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015. Arrived two years after 😘 (U+1F618U+1F618, Unicode 6.0, 2010) and 😚 (U+1F61AU+1F61A, Unicode 6.0, 2010). The basic kissing face was the last kiss to be standardized, which is fitting: it's the plainest kiss, the one with no accessories (no heart, no blush, no closed eyes). The late arrival suggests the Unicode committee initially felt the more expressive kissing faces covered the category, and only later realized they needed a neutral option.

1. 2010Unicode 6.0 adds 😘 (face blowing a kiss) and 😚 (kissing face with closed eyes). Both are clearly romantic.
2. 2012Unicode 6.1 adds 😗 (kissing face) and 😙 (kissing face with smiling eyes) to fill the non-romantic kiss gap↗
3. 2015All four kissing faces included in Emoji 1.0

The meaning of a kiss varies wildly by culture, and 😗 absorbs all that variation.

In France, la bise (cheek kissing as greeting) is standard between friends, family, and even casual acquaintances. Two kisses in Paris, three in Provence, four in Nantes. Lips don't actually touch the cheek. It's air near the cheek with a kissing sound. 😗 is the closest emoji equivalent: a kiss that's really just a gesture.

In Italy and Spain, two-cheek kisses are standard greetings. A 2022 study found Spanish WhatsApp users include kiss emojis in conversation closings far more frequently than German users, mirroring the physical greeting customs of each culture.

In the US and UK, kisses are reserved for closer relationships, making 😗 feel more loaded than it would in Mediterranean culture. An American receiving 😗 from a new acquaintance might read it as forward, while a French person would read it as normal.

• •😗 arrived in Unicode 6.1 (2012), two years after 😘 and 😚 shipped in Unicode 6.0 (2010). The most basic kiss was the last one standardized.
• •Emojipedia notes that 😗 is "almost never used in messages with the word love for a partner." It's the least romantic kissing emoji by design and by usage.
• •A 2022 study in Intercultural Pragmatics found that Spanish WhatsApp users include kissing emojis in conversation closings more frequently than German users, reflecting cultural greeting norms.
• •In France, the number of greeting kisses varies by region: 2 in Paris, 3 in Provence, 4 in Nantes. The question of which cheek to start with is a source of genuine social anxiety.
• •😗 is one of the few emoji with a completely different secondary meaning (whistling) that's arguably more common than its primary meaning (kissing). The Unicode name says "KISSING FACE" but the internet decided it's a whistle.
• •You can compare how 😗 renders across Apple, Google, Samsung, and other platforms on LetsEmoji. The puckered lips look subtly different on each platform, which affects whether it reads more as 'kiss' or 'whistle.'

• •The biggest misinterpretation is the kiss/whistle ambiguity. Some people send 😗 meaning a friendly kiss and the recipient reads it as whistling (or vice versa). Without context (a 🎵 note confirms whistling, a "goodnight" confirms kissing), the lips are doing something uncertain.
• •Using 😗 in a romantic context can fall flat. A partner expecting 😘 (with the heart) who gets 😗 (without the heart) might read the absence of the heart as a demotion. It's like getting a handshake from someone you expected a hug from.
• •In cultures without cheek-kiss greetings (US, UK, East Asia), any kiss emoji from a casual acquaintance can feel forward. 😗 is the safest of the kissing faces, but safe is relative. A kiss is a kiss.

• •😗 is U+1F617U+1F617. Unicode name: KISSING FACE. Common shortcodes: :kissing::kissing: (Slack, Discord, GitHub). Added in Unicode 6.1, NOT 6.0 (unlike 😘 and 😚). This means older systems that support 6.0 but not 6.1 will render 😘 but show a placeholder for 😗.
• •The four kissing faces span two Unicode versions: 😘 (U+1F618U+1F618) and 😚 (U+1F61AU+1F61A) are Unicode 6.0. 😗 (U+1F617U+1F617) and 😙 (U+1F619U+1F619) are Unicode 6.1. If your app needs to support older emoji rendering, test which kissing faces actually display.

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