August 25, 2005

To Smiley or not to Smiley....

So everyone by now should know what an emoticon is. You know, those little smileys. They laugh, cry, even vomit, if you want. Some people love 'em. Some people hate them.

I myself am an emoticon junkie. I come from old-school unix email where all you got was :-), no pictures, no animation. And I still prefer the little ASCII guys, although some of the animated ones are pretty cute. I think emoticons are great for casual trext conversation, and they help convey tone. As a common user of sarcasm, the ;-) smiley lets me tell people I'm just joking with them, rather than being angry.

Poliblogger Steven Taylor posts an interesting discussion of the role of emoticons in modern (that is electronic) discourse.

So what do you think? Are smileys good or evil?

Posted by Caltechgirl at August 25, 2005 2:22 PM | PROCURE FINE OLD WORLD ABSINTHE

I feel that if I were to write an essay or a novel, I would not use emoticons, because I'd be able to express tone more fully. However, in casual e-conversation, I feel emoticons are completely appropriate, and unique to the medium. Blogging and emailing, I'm all for smileys/frownys/throw-uppys, et cetera. See? -> :-D

Posted by: Princess Jami at August 26, 2005 7:56 AM

I came from the old school of my writing ought to convey the tone. After I upset someone I did not want to upset, they said "can't you at least put a smiley in." After that, I started using them whenever necessary.

Posted by: Justene at August 26, 2005 11:31 AM

Actually, there are plenty of languages out there that already had equivalents to emoticons before the advent of the Internet. English is behind the times in that respect.

For example, for quite a while now the Japanese have had special 'kasane kotoba' that describe the expression on a person's face or his tone of voice.

niko niko--a happy smile. The equivalent of :-)

pika pika--you know when a used car salesman smiles, and there's that little glint of light off his teeth? Yeah, that's pika pika.

doki doki--his heart is beating fast with anxiety or excitement

kan kan--anger

waku waku--excitement or nervousness

I also think that part of the problem is that these days we use sarcasm a lot more than, say, Shakespeare or Dickens did. Practically every other sentence that we type is sarcastic. So it's become a lot more essential that we have some kind of tag to indicate whether we're actually serious or just teasing.

Posted by: Kacie Landrum at August 26, 2005 11:57 AM

I think they're evil and they suck. ;-)

Posted by: Dave J at August 26, 2005 9:19 PM

When I'm post an entry I rarely use them but like to use them in emails, when commenting and especially on tagboards. I installed custom smilies on my tagboard because I think they're fun. IMHO smilies are the digital version of the smiley face my perky, blonde high school chum used to dot all her "i"s.

Bottomline ... Sometimes I feel girly and sometimes I don't ... sometimes I feel like a nut :^p and sometimes I don't :^/ Thus, sometimes I use them, sometimes I don't. I think that smilies, much like many things, reflect who I am -- good and evil. ;^)

Great blog title, btw!

Posted by: Friday at August 27, 2005 2:24 PM

Of course they can be overused (and are), but I consider them essential, especially when I'm not being serious.

Posted by: Desert Cat at August 29, 2005 4:56 PM

I saw a bumper sticker on a trailer that read DONT TELL ME WAHT KIND OF DAY TO HAVE

Posted by: condor at September 1, 2005 1:23 PM