Talk:Emoticon/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Emoticon. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 5

artificial creation

Interesting. I saw the "Communications Breakthrough" link, and I'm quite surprised that these things were artificially created. I always thought someone just started using them one day, and then they spread like wildfire. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smack (talk • contribs) 02:22, 18 May 2003 (UTC)

List of emoticons

what about the creation of a List_of_emoticons page? Ebricca 04:00, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

wiktionary:Smiley is probably more appropriate for those. --Menchi 04:03, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Kirby emoticons

Some explanation of the "Kirby" emoticons is required. I don't think I've ever seen them before - is this just somebody's simplistic ASCII art? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevin Saff (talk • contribs) 21:17, 21 January 2004 (UTC)

Kirby is a videogame involving a pink round ball creature that can eat the enemies and gain powers from them. Clicking on the link will reveal both info on the game, and something that that weird bot that adds town names probably added. Dont worry, I'll disambiguate the page and fix the links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KirbyMeister (talk • contribs) 22:50, 18 March 2004 (UTC)

I wonder that the name of "Kirby emoticons" is in popular use. Should the emoticons be categorized into a special group? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.76.181.96 (talk • contribs) 15:58, 17 August 2004 (UTC)

I've certainly never seen "Kirby emoticons" (the term or the emoticons themselves) before...they're kind of cute, but further examples are hardly needed, and are they really encyclopedic? Aranel 16:03, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Instead of just complaining, I did it. I got rid of the Kirby emoticons and the extraneous obscure examples while I was at it. (They are cute - put them on an emoticon site somewhere.) If anybody really disagrees with me, you can dig it out of the history. --Aranel 02:36, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Kirby emoticons are used all the time on Gamefaqs Random insanity board. - ChRiS (84.65.160.152) — Preceding undated comment added 17:08, 3 September 2005

I've seen Kirby emoticons used every once in a while, I'm far too lazy to actually put them back, but I think they should be there, as they are not totally in disuse. --LupusCanis 14:28, 5 Sep 2005 (GMT)

Kirby emoticon <(^o^)> 81.107.72.190 16:35, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

the "Kirby dance" had an special entry, separated from emoticons but it was deleted, bad because many people still searches for that and sometimes is lost in the emoticons definition, while it is something different. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.145.77.30 (talk • contribs) 23:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Clam emoticons and <expressions>

What about 'clam' smileys like (:) (;) (8) or maybe bigger ones like (:D) (:P) (8o) ? -- Kimiko 10:12, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And related things, like <g>, <eg>, <vbg>. They're not face-like, but they are used to convey emotional meaning in email. -- Kimiko 14:44, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think those things might be in the wiktionary:Internet slang entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Flamingo (talk • contribs) 12:33, 10 August 2004 (UTC)

Well, I see them all the time in Starcraft channels - Unregistered User (67.120.106.108), 03:49, 9 June 2005 (UTC)

I've seen kirby emoticons sometimes. They show up on irc (and bash.org) sometimes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.156.70.124 (talk • contribs) 02:00, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

no-one uses the (-) anymore i.e. :P is used not :-p —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.100.185.178 (talk • contribs) 12:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Text and graphic emoticons

Is there some technical distinction between text emoticons and graphic emoticons? Most of the time, nowadays, when someone says emoticons there are talking about cute little images, not the (older) text versions. Does anyone have any info on when this originated? As is, with no explanation, it's a glaring omission. (Also, do real Japanese people actually use those emoticons? I've always seen them used almost exclusively by Anime fans, but, since I don't read Japanese, it's hard to check...) Aranel 16:03, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The Japanese do. At least their gamers do. Go ask anyone who plays Final Fantasy XI. I've also encountered one or two Japanese "blog" sites. However, I haven't figured out what the heck is 'vvvv' in their blogs. - Allyunion 10:26, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that "emoticons" is now mostly used for the graphical versions, although they certainly are more common. My experience, particularly of message boards, suggests that a lot of people still use the text ones by choice. Also, some popular systems such as ezboard only have a very limited range of availible images, and many use combinations that aren't availble as images.

Not only that, I haven't seen anything at all, be it message board, IM system, IRC client, etc, that will offer images for the horizontal ^^ style ones, despite their becoming increasingly common in use. --MockTurtle 21:32, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Okay, but whether it is "mostly" used for graphical emoticons or not, it's still a very common use today. And this article doesn't even go into them briefly. There are whole websites devoted to graphical emoticons. Most of the message board services (including ezboard) do offer customizable graphical emoticons in great variety, although I think the technology in many cases prevents the use some of the more esoteric ones as convertable graphic emoticons. (Usually a custom emoticon has to start with ":" or similar in order to be recognized by the system.) But the introduction of systems where you just click the image and it will appear in your post makes the text codes themselves less important. -- Aranel ("Sarah") 23:30, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

They aren't japanese or anime-related only, in some international keyboard layouts writing ^_^ is far quicker than writing :-) or :). For the same reason, I sometimes use this smiley =^) but I don't think it's common enough to be mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.37.145.22 (talk • contribs) 22:41, 24 February 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to draw attention to this question again. It really isn't right that this article does not discuss graphical emoticons. Any comments, ideas, suggestions? Aranel ("Sarah") 19:51, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I edited the article somewhat superficially (i.e. without any major restructuring) to correct the situation. There should probably be examples of image emoticons, but I don't know where one would get some that are truly, safely public domain. (They have mostly all been passed around so much that no matter what the site says, it's hard to believe that they really know what the copyright status is.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 20:38, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

IMAO the graphic emoticons have corrupted the whole idea of emoticons. Never mind that they're becoming larger and larger (it's not uncommon to see a graphic emoticon the size of four or five rows of text), but what really gets my goat is that they've lost the point of emoticons. What emotion is a yellow face riding a bicycle, dancing ballet or looking like a Borg supposed to convey? I think the creators of these graphics have never heard of emoticon history, and merely wanted to draw cool graphics. — JIP | Talk 07:47, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Types of smiley

Am I the only one who uses smileys with big fat noses? :o)

zoney ███ talk 23:39, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Put it under "variants". While you're editing, maybe get rid of some of the more obscure "Detailed emoticons", seeing as the rose is the only one there that's really widespread. A few examples are worthy of inclusion, but do we need a whole gallery? --Aranel 02:09, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I got rid of the business about "generations" of emoticons because I'm not sure what the point was - does anyone really use such terminology? Chronology has already been established. --Aranel 02:36, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree, that paragraph wasn't particularly useful. --Joy [shallot]

I'm not sure about the so-called "Head and hands emoticons" (although I have never seen them...), so I decided somewhat arbitrarily to leave those ones in. I'd like to take them out. Again, they're cute, but... --Aranel 02:36, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have added head and hands because I've seen them used on IRC and on ICQ by various people (and I don't mean carefree 13-year-old kids by that), and they also nicely illustrate that Western emoticons aren't all horizontal. --Joy [shallot] 12:50, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No, not at all, the smiley with the o (or even with the O) as the nose is fairly common, certainly more than some others already listed. I added it now. The basic smileys list was composed fairly ad hoc, it seems. --Joy [shallot] 12:44, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You can get a different kind of nose if you use the ¬ character (whatever that is - it's underneath the Esc key anyway) :¬) Adambisset 17:41, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:-3

I don't know where you would put something like :-3 and explain that... -- AllyUnion (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 09:04, 19 August 2004 (UTC)

What does it mean and how common is it? I can't remember seeing it used myself... --Joy [shallot] — Preceding undated comment added 12:51, 19 August 2004 (UTC)

I've seen it most commonly around anime fans. It's suppose to indicate an anime wolfish smile. -- AllyUnion (talk) 10:24, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I would argue that it's more cattish than wolfish, actually. --Psyk0 12:19, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would argue that it's really too obscure for this article... -Aranel ("Sarah") 01:37, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Couldn't help but to comment out JarlaxleArtemis's comment. Bleh X-| --Ihope127 01:23, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

It's rather obscure, but it's still not quite anime. It's bassically just a cat smile, the actual meaning is much too esoteric to put in words XD. Just pick a darn category and throw it in. Oh, by the way, :3 is also common too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.137.149.0 (talk • contribs) 06:55, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I've used that emote (or the variant ":3" or "=3") as a "nodding emoticon" where the 3 represents the chin of the person. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Keakealani (talk • contribs) 03:07, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate page

The Smiley is a duplicate page, so I've put up a mergefrom. -- AllyUnion (talk) 10:32, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

SMS emoticons

I have noticed people replacing traditional emoticons in SMS messages with single-character representations such as ü Ü ö Ö, presumably to save space in the message. Would someone care to make mention of this in the article? porge 03:31, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've just noticed ...

That "Arab Letter Teh With Ring" is a perfect pre-formed emoticon: ټ Excellent ;) porge 10:52, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's a nice discovery. In SMS-speak, a similar, but simpler idea is already in use: The German letter "U umlaut", Ü, is a one-character emoticon (well, if you're not German, Estonian or Hungarian, anyway). — JIP | Talk 07:49, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

:'-(

I was very sad when someone removed the ( | ) emoticon ("mooning"). I think it's legitimate; I added it to the article but I didn't make it up. I thought it an example of an alternate part of the human anatomy used as an emoticon... or did that just open the door for all kinds of anatomical emoticons we just don't want to get into? Fishal 20:30, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry—it struck me as rather obscure. The goal here is to list really, really common emoticons, as well as representatives of some of the creativity that is possible. The lists were already too long, and as far as I am concerned, they are still too long. I only left the <>< one in place because it's mentioned in the Ichthys article. (But hey, if someone else felt like removing it, I would not complain. The rose and the heart are the really common ones of that lot.)

But now that you mention it, yes, I agree with the notion that we really don't want to get people thinking about other possible anatomical possibilities. ;) [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 21:14, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hug

I used to use () for a hug, (()) for a big hug, ((())) for a bigger hug, etc, but I wouldn't want to claim that I 'invented' it. Does anyone else send email hugs? Adambisset 17:43, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I recall something like that, though I haven't encountered it in recent years. It might be worth mentioning in some text under "other". (Also perhaps the head/hands ones could be moved down there?) The () hug is not really a proper emoticon, but it's related.

I'm not about this one (but I left it in): =|:-)=

I've seen it before, but is it that common? (Before today I was not aware that it was supposed to indicate honesty. Do people know that this is what is supposed to mean?) [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 19:04, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

To be honest (ha ha) I only know about it because I remember seeing it in a list of emotes back in the 90s. I think it's quite 'cute' (even tho it would be meaningless outside the States). Adambisset 11:54, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I thought the original form of that was [] [[]] [[[]]] etc. DopefishJustin (・∀・) 15:17, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

Not sure how relevant this is but in christmas cards etc. I always drew O to represent a hug; hence XOXOXOXO would be hugs and kisses. I've always known it to be this way. Maybe it's just something unique to my family? --Psyk0 12:24, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks to MSN Messenger, I always use ({) and (}) to represent hugs... Jevon 12:24, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

It's very common to use [] as a hug, mostly in email greetings, here in Brazil. - Roma_emu 15:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Wildly inappropriate and useless article

This article has no bearing in common usage, it's a bunch of purists pontificating about what "proper use" is. "Common eastern examples"?? What the heck is that even supposed to mean? That table is incomprehensible.

And as for Korean, Japanese, Chinese? No. This is the ENGLISH Wikipedia, and none of that belongs here. 76.102.1.129 (talk) 06:23, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Correct Bierce

Ambrose Bierce used an actual "smiley" symbol, not ASCII art, and there was no exclamation point. The reference now comes with a link to Google Books, in case anyone wants to see his actual examples. Choor monster (talk) 20:21, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Plural of Kaomoji and Emoji

"Kaomoji" and "emoji", being Japanese words, act as mass nouns and do not take an "s" when made plural. Think words like "information"; no one says "informations". I've fixed the infractions I saw. 98.23.157.76 (talk) 01:35, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Does 70s Smiley Face Qualify?

If an emoticon is punctuation turned into an emotion symbol or face, does the 70s-era Smiley Face really qualify? There was never anything specifically "punctuation" about that iconic image. I would argue that the 80s invention (or re-invention) of emoticons was a winking reference to the Smiley Face, but that the Smiley Face itself is not an emoticon. The example of a roadside sign with a smiley on it seems a very poor example of "emoticon". Strider (talk) 22:38, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

this sure isn't an emoticon.

180.216.115.24 (talk) 13:38, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

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Emoticons and Psychology

Recent studies on emoticons usage indicate that frequency of emoticons posting can be predicted by sex and age of the user rather than personality traits. Females and younger users are most likely to embed emoticons in their social media posts ^[1]. At the same time research confirmed intuitiveness of emoticons by demonstrating that even children without any social media experience are likely to accurately attribute emotions to emoticons, especially happiness and sadness ^[2].

References

^ Oleszkiewicz, Anna; Karwowski, Maciej; Pisanski, Katarzyna; Sorokowski, Piotr; Sobrado, Boaz; Sorokowska, Agnieszka (2017). "Who uses emoticons? Data from 86 702 Facebook users". Personality and Individual Differences. 119: 289. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2017.07.034. {{cite journal}}: More than one of |pages= and |page= specified (help)
^ Oleszkiewicz, Anna; Frackowiak, Tomasz; Sorokowski, Piotr; Sorokowska, Agnieszka (2017). "Children can accurately recognize facial emotions from emoticons". Computers in Human Behavior (72): 372. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2017.07.040. {{cite journal}}: More than one of |pages= and |page= specified (help)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by AnnOlesz (talk • contribs)

To clarify, are these studies about emoticons like :) or like 😀? --ChiveFungi (talk) 14:40, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Very old examples clearly not faces

I'm amazed anyone really thinks that the 1600s Herrick example could be supposed to represent a face, and not merely colon and bracket punctuation occurring together. That's hardly uncommon. Another example, from 1741, can be found as a citation at Wiktionary's entry for the word "unlectured". 2A00:23C5:FE0C:2100:B1F9:E0AA:2B81:541C (talk) 14:54, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

"BIXie" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect BIXie. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 15#BIXie until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 01:00, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

[1] Oleszkiewicz, Anna; Karwowski, Maciej; Pisanski, Katarzyna; Sorokowski, Piotr; Sobrado, Boaz; Sorokowska, Agnieszka (2017). "Who uses emoticons? Data from 86 702 Facebook users". Personality and Individual Differences. 119: 289. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2017.07.034. {{cite journal}}: More than one of |pages= and |page= specified (help)

[2] Oleszkiewicz, Anna; Frackowiak, Tomasz; Sorokowski, Piotr; Sorokowska, Agnieszka (2017). "Children can accurately recognize facial emotions from emoticons". Computers in Human Behavior (72): 372. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2017.07.040. {{cite journal}}: More than one of |pages= and |page= specified (help)

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