smiley faces

[Agent G]

G

[peteski]

well, i never bought into that, anyway. somebody is always trying to sell something.

 

there's another forum which has animated emoti, emiti, whatever-icons, and some threads consist of nothing but replies with them. for a group, here, which eschews "text - spelling", it seems odd to resort to these things.

Emoticons (or now we also have emojis - thank Japanese culture for this really cutesy stuff)  have been around for a long time.

The above Wiki link has a good explanation as to why they are used:

As social media has become widespread, emoticons have played a significant role in communication through technology, and some devices have provided stylized pictures that do not use punctuation. They offer another range of "tone" and feeling through texting that portrays specific emotions through facial gestures while in the midst of text-based cyber communication.

I also think of emoticons as shortcuts. While you could convey your thoughts purely through words, using emoticons is much easier and faster.  As for the current use you can thank early computer geeks for them. The original emoticons go way back to the days of dial-up bulletin boards where they were written the old-fashioned way using ASCII characters like :-) . Of course as computers got more powerful, cutesy graphics replaced the ASCII text emoticons. That's progress for you.

Even if you dislike those smiley things, I highly recommend that you read the Wikipedia entry I linked to at the beginning of my reply: you might just learn some very interesting things.

 

But as with everything else, there are serious emoticon abusers out there: those who end each sentence with an emoticon, or those who just spew lines full of them across the message like this:

Like it or not, this is the new way of computer-text-based conversations. You don't have to like them or use them.

Edited July 12, 2016 by peteski

[Ace-Garageguy]

                                            

[Foxer]

[花火]

 

I'd love this one.

[Xingu]

I am impressed. Not a single steaming pile of poop has been posted. I think this group is finally maturing.

[SfanGoch]

Only because I haven't searched too hard.    

[Ace-Garageguy]

... I think this group is finally maturing.

Nah.    

[SfanGoch]

I'm glad that's settled. We build models, darn it! I'd hate to think that we take ourselves too seriously. 

[plastic-mechanic]

I am impressed. Not a single steaming pile of poop has been posted. I think this group is finally maturing.

partially correct

[10thumbs]

partially correct

[JohnU]

That's poop?! I thought it was chocolate ice cream!?

[Ace-Garageguy]

That's poop?! I thought it was chocolate ice cream!?

Maybe it was goin' in...