(⚙Լ⚙)

You can almost hear the gears turning in this one, because the eyes are gears. Both are ⚙ (GEAR), the gear symbol. As this site displays it, each is a round ring with eight short teeth sticking out (up, down, left, right and on the diagonals) and a solid black dot in the middle. That dot reads as a pupil, so the two gears become wide, unblinking eyes staring straight at you. Between them stands Լ (ARMENIAN CAPITAL LETTER LIWN), the capital letter for the “l” sound in the Armenian alphabet. It looks almost exactly like a Latin L: a straight vertical stroke with a short foot turning right at the bottom. The upright stroke works as the bridge of a nose, and the little foot can pass for a tight mouth pushed to one side, which gives the face a stiff, deadpan, machine-like look. The Լ is about as tall as the gear rings; only the top and bottom teeth of each gear stick out past it. There are no space characters inside the parentheses, but the three glyphs don’t touch: the upright of the Լ stands a little apart from the left gear, while its foot reaches almost up to the right one. Some apps and devices show ⚙ as a colored gear emoji instead. On December 6, 2015, an account on X that automatically posted kaomoji built from unusual characters posted this face on its own. Our collection has 11 faces that use ⚙, but in every one it’s a decoration outside the face; this is the only one with gears for eyes, and no other face uses Լ. Send it when you’re thinking so hard you can feel the cogs turn, when an unfamiliar gadget has you frozen, or when you want to answer in a deliberately stiff, robotic way.