Created By: SCRAMBLR (blackout)
Updated: January 10 2026

These lil' "nothing characters" can - and frequently do - cause complete chaos in everything from backend databases, massive data warehousing systems, and other hilarious things that foolish and arrogant administrators will often overlook - even when staring directly at "the problem" because it's not visible to people who do not take a moment to think outside of their comfort zones. I have yet to find an environment or company that doesn't get completely humbled by these lil' bundles of joy.

👻 INVISIBLE & ZERO WIDTH UTF-8 TEXT 👻

NAME	Code	UTF-8	Width	Effect	Example (Escaped + URL)
ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER (ZWNJ)	U+200C	E2 80 8C	0	Zero-width format; Bypasses Minimum Character Filters, Creates Blank Replies, Works Everywhere.	Ye\u200Cs Ye%E2%80%8Cs
WORD JOINER	U+2060	E2 81 A0	0	Similar to ZWNJ + Prevents line breaks	token\u2060token token%E2%81%A0token
INVISIBLE SEPARATOR	U+2063	E2 81 A3	0	Invisible Separator; Another Variant, Never Filtered	A\u2063B A%E2%81%A3B
INVISIBLE PLUS	U+2064	E2 81 A4	0	Sexy Invisible Operator-Like Format. ;)	1\u20642 1%E2%81%A42
ZERO WIDTH SPACE (ZWSP)	U+200B	E2 80 8B	0	Can Cause Break; Sometimes Filtered.	Ye\u200Bs Ye%E2%80%8Bs
ZERO WIDTH JOINER (ZWJ)	U+200D	E2 80 8D	0	Variant of ZWNJ but with Glyph/emojis	👩\u200D💻 %F0%9F%91%A9%E2%80%8D%F0%9F%92%BB
SOFT HYPHEN	U+00AD	C2 AD	0	Invisible - or hyphen, can be used instead of getting cockblocked by WAF	hy\u00ADphen hy%C2%ADphen
MONGOLIAN VOWEL SEPARATOR	U+180E	E1 A0 8E	0	Another variant of ZWNJ, older-school format.	A\u180EB A%E1%A0%8EB
COMBINING GRAPHEME JOINER	U+034F	CD 8F	0	Invisible combining mark.	e\u034F\u034F e%CD%8F%CD%8F
LINE SEPARATOR	U+2028	E2 80 A8	newline	Unicode line break	ok\u2028WARN ok%E2%80%A8WARN
PARAGRAPH SEPARATOR	U+2029	E2 80 A9	newline	Unicode paragraph break	hi\u2029next hi%E2%80%A9next
NEXT LINE (NEL)	U+0085	C2 85	newline	Attempt for newline via C1 newline control	a\u0085b a%C2%85b
NO-BREAK SPACE (NBSP)	U+00A0	C2 A0	space	Not trimmed like ASCII	a\u00A0b a%C2%A0b
NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE	U+202F	E2 80 AF	thin	Narrow NBSP	1\u202F000 1%E2%80%AF000
HAIR SPACE	U+200A	E2 80 8A	hair	Extremely thin space (still visible tho)	a\u200Ab a%E2%80%8Ab
IDEOGRAPHIC SPACE	U+3000	E3 80 80	wide	Full-width space so it's kinda dumb tbh.	a\u3000b a%E3%80%80b
BOM / ZWNBSP	U+FEFF	EF BB BF	0	Hidden BOM prefix (not always allowed)	\uFEFFadmin %EF%BB%BFadmin

🔄🔃 Right-to-Left & Typing KungFu (BiDi) 🔃🔄

NOTE: PDF = Return back to normal writing

Name	Code	UTF-8	Width	Effect	Example (Literal + URL)
LEFT-TO-RIGHT EMBEDDING (LRE)	U+202A	E2 80 AA	0	Start Left-2-Right embedding	abc\u202A123\u202Cdef abc%E2%80%AA123%E2%80%ACdef
RIGHT-TO-LEFT EMBEDDING (RLE)	U+202B	E2 80 AB	0	Start Right-2-Left embedding	abc\u202B123\u202Cdef abc%E2%80%AB123%E2%80%ACdef
POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTING (PDF)	U+202C	E2 80 AC	0	End embedding/override	...\u202Etxt\u202C... ...%E2%80%AEtxt%E2%80%AC...
LEFT-TO-RIGHT OVERRIDE (LRO)	U+202D	E2 80 AD	0	Force LTR rendering until PDF	ab\u202Dcd\u202Cef ab%E2%80%ADcd%E2%80%ACef
RIGHT-TO-LEFT OVERRIDE (RLO)	U+202E	E2 80 AE	0	Force RTL rendering until PDF	abc\u202Etxt\u202Cdef abc%E2%80%AEtxt%E2%80%ACdef
LEFT-TO-RIGHT ISOLATE (LRI)	U+2066	E2 81 A6	0	LTR isolate	A\u2066B\u2069C A%E2%81%A6B%E2%81%A9C
RIGHT-TO-LEFT ISOLATE (RLI)	U+2067	E2 81 A7	0	RTL isolate	A\u2067B\u2069C A%E2%81%A7B%E2%81%A9C
FIRST STRONG ISOLATE (FSI)	U+2068	E2 81 A8	0	Direction inferred by first strong char	A\u2068שלום\u2069B A%E2%81%A8 %D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%9D%E2%81%A9B
POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE (PDI)	U+2069	E2 81 A9	0	End isolate	...\u2067RTL\u2069... ...%E2%81%A7RTL%E2%81%A9...
ARABIC LETTER MARK (ALM)	U+061C	D8 9C	0	Arabic letter mark (swaps directionality)	A\u061CB A%D8%9CB
LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK (LRM)	U+200E	E2 80 8E	0	Nudge LTR rendering	A\u200EB A%E2%80%8EB
RIGHT-TO-LEFT MARK (RLM)	U+200F	E2 80 8F	0	Nudge RTL rendering	A\u200FB A%E2%80%8FB