Invisible Emoji & Blank Characters β€” Copy the Nothing

Two searches land here: people who want the "invisible emoji" (that is πŸ«₯, and it has a story), and people who want to send a blank message or hide a character in text (that is what the invisible characters below do). Both get the honest answer. Updated November 04, 2026.

The invisible emoji: πŸ«₯

πŸ«₯

Dotted Line Face (U+1FAE5, Emoji 14.0, 2021) is the official invisible emoji: a face drawn in dashes, fading out of view. Unicode’s intent was the feeling of disappearing - going quiet, hiding in plain sight, feeling unseen. It landed in meme culture as "invisible mode": reacting to messages you are pretending not to see, or captioning a photo where someone is conspicuously absent. It does not create blank text - it is a visible emoji of invisibility. For actually empty-looking messages, the characters below are the tools.

Actually invisible characters β€” tap to copy

These are real Unicode control characters, not emoji: each occupies a slot in the text stream while drawing nothing. The classic uses: blank-looking messages, separating things without visible punctuation, and tricking apps that reject empty input.

Blank spaceA full space character - the gentle gap
Full-width spaceWide space (CJK) - looks like a bigger gap
Zero-width spaceTruly invisible - zero width, shows nothing
Left-to-right markInvisible direction mark
Word joinerInvisible, prevents line breaks
Three steps: find the character, tap copy, paste it anywhere
Invisible or visible, the copy flow is identical.

What each one is for

Zero-width space (U+200B) is the workhorse: truly invisible, zero width, passes most "empty message" checks. Full-width space (U+3000) is a visible-but-blank wide space - some apps trim zero-width characters, and this one survives them. Left-to-right mark (U+200E) and word joiner (U+2060) are direction and line-break controls that also draw nothing; they work as blanks in stricter apps. One caution: a few platforms deliberately strip control characters in messages - if all four fail somewhere, that platform is cleaning input, and no copy of "nothing" will pass it.

How an invisible character sits in visible text
The invisible character occupies a real slot in the text stream - it just draws nothing.

Where blank characters genuinely help

Beyond the joke of an empty message, invisible characters do real work: they hold open form fields that reject empty input, act as invisible separators between sections of a bio that collapses normal line breaks, and keep trailing spaces alive in apps that trim them. They are also the honest answer to "how do I make my name look blank" in games and chats - the character is really there, which is why it passes length checks, and really nothing, which is why nobody sees it. The limits are the platform’s input cleaning: anything that strips control characters (some corporate chat tools do) removes the trick entirely, visibly doing nothing to your text.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an invisible emoji?

The closest thing is πŸ«₯ Dotted Line Face (2021) - a face made of dashes fading away, the official "feeling invisible" emoji. For actually invisible text, copy the zero-width characters from this page - they are control characters, not emoji.

How do I send a blank message?

Copy the zero-width space from the table above and paste it as the entire message. Most chat apps accept it and deliver a message that looks empty. Some apps trim it - if one fails, try the full-width space instead.