HAHAHAHA you guys wouldn’t believe, Tumblr showed me this:

Apparently, this is an emoticon I use more often than I thought. orz (<- oh look, there it is!)

ANYWAY, it is a pictogram of a little person, curled in on themselves. The o is the head, the r the arms, and z is folded over legs. Both orz and its close cousin OTL show various states of despair, but slightly different types. After discussing with a friend, we’ve concluded that it’s less the amount of despair that’s different between the two, but rather the expression of it. In “orz” the person is sorta curled/collapsed in on themselves, whereas “OTL” is much more dramatic, sorta slamming their hand on the ground. Like so:

Hope this illustrates the “orz” and “OTL” LOOOOOL

I… never knew this.

Best illustration ever.

I feel like I’ve only ever seen people in Australia or Australia-adjacent areas use this, and until this very moment I legit thought it was people making fun of the way some Australians say “arse”. Like. It was a slangy way of saying “ass” the way an American would mutter “ass” under their breath after talking about something frustrating or stupid. 

I had evolved an entire linguistic mythology around orz and it turns out now it’s just an emoji of an upset little man.  

Oh! Interesting… I had surmised it was someone bowing down in an expression of “l’m not worthy” (though someone had to clue me in that it was an emoticon at some point). But a quick google shows that the OP’s definition is, if not the only one, by far the most prominent. Good to know!

(I also love copperbadge’s Aussie theory! :D)