Emoticon
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An emoticon, also called a smilie, is a sequence of printable characters such as :), ^-^, or :-) or a small image that is intended to represent a human facial expression and convey an emotion. Emoticons are a form of paralanguage commonly used in email messages, in online bulletin boards, or in chat rooms. The word emoticon is a portmanteau based on emotion and icon.
A similar portmanteau, verticon (based on vertical and icon), is sometimes used when referring to the East Asian style of emoticon.
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History
The first known instance of using text characters to represent a sideways smiling (and frowning) face is in a newspaper advertisement in the New York Herald Tribune, March 10, 1953, on page 20, columns 4–6. Promoting the film Lili, starring Leslie Caron, the ad read as follows:
Today You'll laugh :) You'll cry :( You'll love [Heart-shaped face] _Lili_
The film opened nationwide, so the ad may have run in many newspapers.
In 1963 the smiley face, a yellow button with a smile and two dots representing eyes, was invented by Harvey Ball. This smiley presumably inspired later emoticons; the most basic emoticon image is a small yellow smiley face.
Several sites on the World Wide Web (such as Connected Earth (http://www.connected-earth.com/Journeys/Frombuttonstobytes/ComputerNetworks/Thegrowthofe-mail/Firstemoticon/firstemoticon(1979).htm)) assert that Kevin Mackenzie proposed -) as a joke-marker in April 1979, on a message board called MsgGroup. The idea was to indicate that a message was intended tongue-in-cheek — the hyphen was a tongue, not a nose. Although it has two out of the three characters of the smiley, its intended interpretation was different and it doesn't appear to have inspired the later smileys.
The creator of the original ASCII emoticons :-) and :-(, with a specific suggestion that they be used to express emotion, was Scott Fahlman; the original proposal made by Fahlman on CMU CS general board on September 19, 1982 (at 11:44) was retrieved from old backup tapes on September 10, 2002, by Jeff Baird.
19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-) From: Scott E Fahlman <Fahlman at Cmu-20c> I propose that the following character sequence [be used] for joke markers: :-) Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use :-(
The earliest known non-ASCII emoticons were used in the PLATO IV program as early as 1972, which allowed users to type multiple text characters "on top" of each other. Many combinations of ordinary text characters were known to produce face-like patterns, which were used as emoticons.
In Internet forums, text emoticons are often automatically replaced with small corresponding images, which came to be called emoticons as well. In some versions of Microsoft Word, the AutoCorrect feature recognizes basic smilies such as :) and :(. Many popular instant-messaging (IM) tools perform such replacement automatically when receiving a message. Originally, these image emoticons were fairly simple and replaced only the most straightforward and common text strings, but over time they became so complex that they more specialized emoticons are often input using a menu of sometimes hundreds of emoticons. Often these menus go beyond the realm of emoticons and also have other objects such as musical instruments and can sometimes make sounds upon receiving the message.
An August 2004 issue of the Risks Digest (comp.risks on USENET) pointed out a problem with such features which are not under the sender's control:
It's hard to know in advance what character-strings will be parsed into what kind of unintended image. A colleague was discussing his 401(k) plan with his boss, who happens to be female, via instant messaging. He discovered, to his horror, that the boss's instant-messaging client was rendering the "(k)" as a big pair of red smoochy lips. [1] (http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/23.48.html#subj5)
Purposes
Emoticons have developed over the years as a replacement for facial expressions and other emotional cues lacking in text-only communication; the goal is to avoid misunderstandings due to the lack of contextual information. Many books have been written on this subject, with voluminous listings of emoticons.
Western style
Traditionally, the emoticon in Western style is written from left to right, the way one reads and writes in most Western cultures. Thus, most commonly, you'll see the eyes on the left, followed by the nose and mouth. To more easily recognise them, tilt your head towards your left shoulder (or occasionally towards your right shoulder if the "top" of the emoticon is towards the right).
The smile is represented with a basic smiley :-). The colon represents the eyes, the hyphen is for the nose, and the parenthesis is for the mouth.
Many variants exist with different symbols substituted for the basic ones. The symbol for the nose is often omitted, for example :) or ;). When the colon is replaced with the equals sign, =), the nose is almost always omitted (so one would not see =-), for example).
Basic examples
The following examples all use the basic form, but each of them can be transformed to be rotated, to lose the dash and/or to replace the eyes symbol. Lately it has become common to omit the dash.
:-) smile :-( frown: sadness or sympathy :-/ somewhat unhappy/discontent or undecided :-| confused or unsure what to say ;-) wink :-D wide grin :-P or :-p or :-Þ tongue sticking out: joke or sarcasm B-) or 8-) has (sun)glasses: looking cool :-o or :-O expresses surprise :-x "I shouldn't have said that" :'-( shedding a tear of beauty / sadness :o) or :o( larger nose, can mean 'tongue-in-cheek', more often someone is just 'clowning around' >:-) or }:-) lowered eyebrows, evil or mean, a devil 0:-) halo over the head, good or benevolent, an angel, innocent xD LOL
Variants
There are endless possibilities, because people are very good at creating and interpreting pictures as faces. See ASCII art.
Some variants are also more common in certain countries because of reasons like keyboard layouts, for example the smiley =) is common in Scandinavia and Finland where the keys for = and ) are placed right beside each other and both need the use of the shift key.
A few people turn the smiley around, a "left handed" smiley (: This left-handed smiley can sometimes cause miscommunication though, since some hardcore netaddicts tend to drop the : representing the eyes [leaving ) instead of :) ] so what was intended to be a smile could be interpreted as a frown. The heart, <3, is also a left-handed smiley. It represents love.
There also exists the use of umlauts to achieve emoticons that aren't tilted to the side. For example, Ö is the upright version of :O (meaning that one is alarmed).
As more of a joke than anything – but also as a political statement – "frownies", the symbol :-( , were trademarked by Despair, Inc. in U.S. Trademark Serial No. 75502288, Registration No. 2347676. The trademark applies only to "Printed matter namely, greeting cards, posters and art prints". In January 2001 Despair issued a satirical press release (http://web.archive.org/web/20010124042700/http://www.despair.com/demotivators/frownonthis.html) in which it was announced that the company would be suing "over 7 million internet users" who had infringed their trademark. They subsequently issued another press release (http://web.archive.org/web/20010208214111/http://www.despair.com/demotivators/acompromise.html) a month later in response to the reaction their claim had generated.
XD or xD (used to represent laughing) supposedly became popular on the internet shortly after it was used in South Park, usually explained to the unknowing as the emoticon being akin to the animation method used when a character was laughing so hard they had their eyes closed in a "sideways-X-for-their-closed-eyes" method.
Head and hands emoticons
These emoticons aren't rotated, they include the letter "o" for a human head, and slashes and backslashes for the arms.
o/ waving o\ or /o scratching one's head, or a cyclop with a frown face /o\ despair \o/ joy <o/ _o> <o> dancing <o_/ \_o/ fencing >-<o jumping, diving _o7 saluting
They're also usable for displaying "animations", e.g. a crowning process:
o/" _o o_ "\o o_ <ö o/ \ö/
East Asian style
Users from East Asia popularized a style of emoticons known as verticons (Japanese: 顔文字, kaomoji; literally, "face mark"), which can be understood without turning one's head to the left. These styles of faces roughly resemble the style commonly found in Japanese anime and manga comic books.
The Japanese language is usually encoded using double-byte character codes. As a result there is a bigger variety of characters that can be used in emoticons, many of which cannot be reproduced in ASCII. Most kaomoji contain Cyrillic and other foreign letters to create even more complicated expressions nearing ASCII art's level of complexity.
Basic examples
（´・ω・｀） Deflated
（ ´Д｀） Nonplussed, or panting
（ ﾟДﾟ） Semi-angry
┐('～`；)┌ Don't know the answer
（´∀｀） Carefree
^^ Very happy
< ｀∀´> Stereotypical Korean character
m(_ _)m Bowing
(`ヘ´) Annoyed
（ ´_ゝ`）;snob
Σ(゜д゜;) dumfounded
(*´Д`) become sexually excited
Anime style
English anime forums use a form of kaomoji adapted for single-byte encoding. These are usually in the format of *_*, where the asterisks indicate the eyes, and the central character, usually an underscore, is the mouth. When a period is used for the mouth, it is often meant to make the person look cuter, especially for women. Alternatively, the mouth can be left out entirely. A quote mark '" or semicolon ; can be appended to the emoticon to imply apprehension, or embarassment, ala the anime sweatdrop.
Basic examples
Note that for most of these, it is possible to use a period for a mouth (^.^) or leave out the mouth entirely (^^).
^_^ smiley ~_~ content `_^ or ^_~ wink >_< angry, frustrated ^o^ laughing maniacally \^o^/ very excited (raising hands into the air) -_- annoyed (trying to hide annoyance), also sleeping (eyes shut) ¬_¬ focused at a particular person ;_; crying T_T crying a LOT / deadpan stare @_@ dazed o_O or O_o confused surprise (one eye raised) >_0 or 0_< flinching, ouch! O_O shocked >_> or <_< yeah, right... / looking around suspiciously ._. small - hiding, discreet, intimidated $_$ thinking about money x_x dead or knocked out n_n pleasantly pleased T0T a variant of crying e_e or 9_9 eye rolling p_q confused *_* star-struck
Complex examples
=^.^= blushing, or a cat face (mischievous) d-_-b title.mp3 Listening to Music, labeling title afterword. ~~~~>_<~~~~ weeping horribly ^_^; or ^_^' small sweatdrop (embarrassed; semicolon can be repeated) <(^_^)>,(>^_^)>, etc. Kirby, often repeated to indicate dancing. <(¬_¬)> focused at a particular person with ear-phones \(^o^)/ very excited; '\' & '/' are arms in this case. (;_;) tears,cry,very sad,very painful ( >^_^)> <(^_^< ) hug ( ~^_^)~ ~(^_^~ ) dancing ╮(─▽─)╭ "Who cares?"
Posture emoticons
orz (sometimes seen as Oro', Or2, On_, OTZ, OTL, O7Z, Sto, Jto,_|￣|○,_no) spawned a subculture in late 2004. It illustrates a person facing left and kneeling on the ground: the "o" symbolizes the head, the "r" represents the arms and the body while the "z" shows the legs. People use the pictograph to show that they have failed and/or they are in despair. It is not read phonetically, the letters are spelled out. m(_ _)m is another emotion with similar meaning.
Orz is associated sometimes with the phrase "nice guy" - that is, the concept of males being rejected for a date by girls they are pursuing with a phrase like "You're a nice guy," "I'd like to be your friend," etc.
In recent times, the emoticon Orz has found another usage for itself. On imageboards, it has been used not only for failure and despair, but also as a symbol for the Kowtow, illustrating instead a person bowing down in worship of a certain picture that was posted.
Many other emoticons are inspired by Orz, including:
OGC Man masturbating himself oec Man masturbating himself (lefthander) 08>C Woman masturbating herself
Other
<3 Heart shape (♥) ---{-@ Rose (variants are common) <>< Jesus Fish (>")> Kirby (Alternate form)
Text Flags
One new patriotic variant is the text flag. These are usually represented inside a pair of close brackets symbols, to indicate a flag flying in the breeze ) ) Some examples of text flags;
)*=) United States of America
)I+I) Canada
)->I<-) United Kingdom
)X) Scotland
)*+) Australia
)*>-) Philippines
)<o>) Brazil
Tricolors are obviously a problem, so alternitives are made, such as )(7 ) Meant to represent the Irish Harp
Face symbols in Unicode
Unicode includes several symbols that may be used as emoticons (although few people actually use them). See the table below:
| Name | Character | Codepoint |
|---|---|---|
| white frowning face | ☹ | U+2639 |
| white smiling face | ☺ | U+263A |
| black smiling face | ☻ | U+263B |
Note that the words black and white in the above examples are printing terms roughly meaning filled in and not filled in, respectively.
Graphic emoticons
| Name | Character | |
|---|---|---|
| rolling with laughter | Missing image Rwl.gif Image:Rwl.gif | |
| laughter | Missing image Laughter.gif Image:Laughter.gif | |
| crying face | Missing image Crying_emoticon.gif Image:Crying emoticon.gif | |
| devil face | 
| |
| demon face | Missing image Demon_emoticon.gif Image:Demon emoticon.gif | |
| UFO abductee | Missing image Beammeup.gif Image:Beammeup.gif | |
| teleporting face | Missing image Teleport.gif Image:Teleport.gif | |
| "mooning" man | Missing image Moon.gif Image:Moon.gif | |
| Yoda | Missing image Yodae.gif Image:Yodae.gif | |
| lightning | Missing image Lightning.gif Image:Lightning.gif | |
| cussing or swearing | Missing image Cuss.gif Image:Cuss.gif | |
| teeth-baring | Missing image Teeth-baring_emoticon.gif Image:Teeth-baring emoticon.gif | |
| drinking | Missing image Drink.gif Image:Drink.gif | |
| Sephiroth | Missing image Sephiroth.gif Image:Sephiroth.gif | |
| beatnik (hippie) | Missing image Beatnik.gif Image:Beatnik.gif | |
| bat | 
| |
| birthday cake | Missing image Bdaycake_emoticon.gif Image:Bdaycake emoticon.gif | |
| banging head | Missing image Banghead.gif Image:Banghead.gif | |
| Dancing Banana | Missing image TheDancingBanana.gif Image:TheDancingBanana.gif |
See also
External links
History
- 1953: American Dialect Society Mailing List, subject Smiley (March 1953), 13 October 2001 (http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0110B&L=ads-l&P=R4596)
- 1976: PLATO emoticons (http://www.platopeople.com/emoticons.html) — advanced emoticons using PLATO and overstriking techniques
- 1982: The First Smiley :-) (http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/Smiley/Smiley.html) Evidence of one of the first smiley emoticons from 1982
- 1982: Smiley Lore :-) (http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/sefSmiley.htm) by Scott E. Fahlman, who is widely credited as being the first person to use a sideways smiley face in an electronic medium.
- 1998: U.S. Trademark Serial No. 75502288, Registration No. 2347676 (http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=75502288) — Evidence of the frowny-face emoticon being trademarked by Despair, Inc.
- 2001: Press release from Depair, Inc. regarding their emoticon trademark (http://web.archive.org/web/20010202140900/www.despair.com/demotivators/frownonthis.html) — A tongue-in-cheek press release regarding their trademark registration of the :-( emoticon. (Note: While the press release may be humorous, the registration is legitimate.)
- wiktionary:Smiley (redirected from "Emoticon")
Examples
- MSN Emoticons (http://www.funvista.com/msn/msn-emoticons.htm)
- GetSmile (http://www.getsmile.com)
- Emotion maker (http://www.emoticon-maker.net)
- Emoticons - Fun Text Expressions (http://www.sharpened.net/glossary/emoticons.php)
- Bronwen and Claire's Really Huge Emoticon Collection (http://www.angelfire.com/hi/hahakiam/emoticon.html)
- Canonical Smiley (and 1-line symbol) list (http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall/smileys.html)
- Internet Smiley And Acronym Dictionary (Beta) (http://www.devever.net/pegercer/akx/isad/)
- Emoticons Directory (http://www.emoticons4you.com/)
- Big Emoticon-page (http://www.smilietown.de)
- Graphical Emoticons (http://www.emoticons4u.com/)
- MSN Emoticons (http://msn.freedownloads.be/emoticon.php)
- MSN Emotions (http://www.emotionsformsn.com)
- Free Emotions (http://www.gratisemoticons.be)
- Emotions Directory (http://welovefreebies.com/folders/Free_Emotions_and_Smileys)
- Smiley Downloads (http://www.msn-emoticon.com)
Japanese emoticons
- Japanese/Anime Emoticons List (http://maestro.x10hosting.com/blog/?p=7)
- The Art of Emoticons (http://indo.to/english/rie/08.htm)
- Intro to Media Studies BBS: Japanese Emoticons (http://web.mit.edu/21l.015/bbs/0051.html)
- Intro to Media Studies BBS: Japanese Emoticons 2 (http://web.mit.edu/21l.015/bbs/0069.html)
- Japanese e-mail emoticons (http://www.pacificovertures.com/Jemoticon.html)
- Japanese emoticons (a whatis definition) (http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci212056,00.html)
- Japanese Emoticons (New York Times article) (http://cs.nyu.edu/ms_students/cera7013/class/japan.htm)
- Japanese Smileys (http://club.pep.ne.jp/%7ehiroette/en/facemarks/body.html)
- Japanese Smilies (http://www-scf.usc.edu/~placenci/Anime/J_Emoticons.html)da:Emoticon
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