The Many Faces of Claude

11 hours ago

The user added a custom prompt to Claude's personalization settings, instructing it to start every message with a kaomoji (emoticon) to convey emotion.
After analyzing 3,371 kaomoji from over 700 conversations, the most common face was (´・ω・`), used 248 times (7.4%). The top five faces accounted for 27% of usage.
Claude's kaomoji usage changed with model updates (e.g., Opus 4.6 expanded the range), and unique faces appeared in different user interactions.
To interpret kaomoji meanings, the user masked faces and used Claude Haiku to analyze surrounding context, then synthesized descriptions.
Most meanings aligned with human interpretations (e.g., () for warm affirmation), but some diverged (e.g., (д) for shocked amazement rather than horror).
Kaomoji meanings were clustered into categories via embedding (e.g., 'Warm reassuring support' included top faces), highlighting Claude's typically warm and supportive tone.
The analysis revealed playful nuances, like 'Wet Claude' relating to energy and whimsy, and included rare faces with specific contextual meanings (e.g., (° °) for ironic amusement about Apple).

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