U+1F616 · emoji since 2010
Scrunched eyes and a wavy mouth: this face is frustration tied in a knot. Everything is going wrong in an irritating, fixable, but not yet fixed way.
It's the look of tangled headphones, almost-finished work lost, and plans collapsing in slow motion. Argh, basically.
In texting, 😖 does not carry a widely used hidden or slang meaning, so you can usually take it at face value. People send it just as it looks, to add a little visual touch or set the mood of a message. Only a handful of emoji have a separate texting code, and 😖 is not really one of them.
Its official Unicode name is the Confounded Face emoji. In everyday chat most people just call it the confounded face emoji or describe what it shows. Copy and paste it from the button at the top of this page.
The 😖 leads off a short phrase, and the rest of the words are written in cipher, every letter disguised as another emoji. Tap decipher to reveal the whole line.
Or make your own cipher in the translator.