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Emoticon denoting cuteness or happiness From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
uwu (/ˈuːwuː/ ), also stylized UwU, is an emoticon representing a cute face. The u characters represent closed eyes, while the w represents a cat mouth.[1][2] It is used to express various warm, happy, or affectionate feelings.
The emoticon uwu is often used to denote cuteness (kawaii), happiness, or tenderness.[2][3] Excessive usage of the emoticon can also have the intended effect of annoying its recipient.[4] It is popularly used in the furry fandom.[2][5] It is often erroneously used to reference Japanese otaku culture,[citation needed] despite not being of Japanese origin and Japanese phonology lacking a "wu" sequence entirely.[6]
The emoticon also has a more surprised and sometimes allusive variant, owo (also stylized OwO; /ˈoʊwoʊ/ ; also associated with the furry fandom and often the response "what's this?")[2] that may also denote cuteness, as well as curiosity and perplexion.[7] owo gained popularity in 2018;[5] as opposed to uwu, the o characters represent open eyes.[5] It is also sometimes used for trolling.[8] Another variant, TwT, is often used to symbolize crying, with each T representing a closed eye with tears streaming down.[9]
The emoticon uwu is known to date back as far as April 11, 2000, when it was used by furry artist Ghislain Deslierres in a post on the furry art site VCL (Vixen Controlled Library).[10] A 2005 anime fanfiction contained another early use of the word. The origin of the term is unknown, with many people believing it to originate in Internet chat rooms. By 2014, the emoticon had spread across the Internet into Tumblr, becoming an Internet subculture.[4]
The word uwu is included in the Royal Spanish Academy's word observatory,[a] defined as an "emoticon used to show happiness or tenderness".[3][12]
In 2018, the official Twitter account tweeted "uwu" in response to a tweet by an artist.[13][14]
In 2020, the U.S. Army Esports Twitter account tweeted "uwu" in reply to a tweet by Discord, which was met by significant backlash from Twitter users. This event culminated in a trend of attempting to get banned from the U.S. Army Esports Discord server as quickly as possible, with a common technique being to link to the Wikipedia article on war crimes committed by the United States.[15][16]
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