April 07, 2004

The Secret Origin of the Smiley (Via Memepool)
posted by jacobw 20 years ago
  • Yikes. The smiley's been around for 22 years?
  • yea, 22 years :{
  • You hold him, I'll hit him.
  • Kevin MacKenzie is said to have used -) back in 1979. I have no idea why there were no eyes.
  • The smiley was blind?
  • After 22 years he has finally grown up and become a hard smoking dryface intellectual... |:
  • I thought Al Gore invented the smiley? /obligatory comment
  • my sweetie and i use this sign for boobs (OO) i'd like to take credit for that one right now.
  • Holy crud, those are some mighty nipples you've got there. Anyone else notice the adverts starting to pop up all over the place selling smilies? Like, selling tiny little animated pictures you can get anywhere. For free. Gawd bless the intarweb.
  • =={(OO) *cue Benny Hill music* ooh ooh and 3 more: 7:^) Ronald Reagan :') Bob Hope +<:^) the Pope
  • +<:') Bob Pope?
  • pizzasub take a lap!
  • Aw, but coach...!
  • It makes what I write look as if done by a japanese teenage girl *cough* but I prefer japanese smileys: \(^_^) / (>_<)
  • Sidedish: those are some bodacious tatas* actually, these are your average nipples: (o) (o) and these are your average middle-aged nipples**: . ( )( ) .. o o * I've ALWAYS wanted to say those two words in mixed company. ** It's hell being 50 :(
  • and these are your average middle-aged nipples: Ohh no, please!! Must. Shut. Down. Imagination. By the way. www.bodacious-tatas.org. Was NSFW, but no more. :(
  • Oh no, not again with the freako timestamps!!
  • Look at the first comment!
  • Ah, that's how the nipples came into the conversation. I didn't see any in the linked site. That makes me sound disappointed, but honestly I am merely pointing out a fact.
  • ( (It's a banana)
  • emotipr0n: :)8-< :)='<
  • Wendell, that's filthy. Let me clean those up for family-values monkeys. :)%*< :)=*< [fig leaves added]
  • (_8^(I) Homer Simpson. (Tilt head sideways to view.)
  • My goal for sometime has been to find the emoticon that can properly expressed a wry or chagrined smile - I thought I had it at one point, but I forgot the combo. This is the emotion most inexpressible in chat. Great link, jacobw.
  • :$ ?
  • ( for you, BlueHorse.
  • My favourite: o_O Which is what I look like at work most of the time.
  • Good try, BlueHorse, but it isn't quite right. I thought I had discovered something that looked like a half smile, but this :'| doesn't work. But ( could be on its way to replacing [banana] - except that the html for the bolding (essential, I think) is much more effort to type, thus undermining the point in using a smily in the first place.... :)
  • I did have a question - it's been my experience that there seems to be two systems of emoticons - one horizontal and one vertical, with the horizontal ones like this - ^_^ or '_' or >^_^< (only kitty cat emoticon I have ever seen) - more popular in Asia than in North Am. Does this fit with what other monkeys have seen? Are there regionalities to emoticons? More systems?
  • jb: You're right, the horizontal smilies (e.g. ^_^, -_-, <_<) are almost exclusively used in Asia (or Asian-susbcultures in other continents). =^_^= is also used for kitten-like faces. As well, they have lots of other smilies using only characters available in Asian ascii. Here is a flash animation using Japanese ascii characters [warning: music!]. I mix my horizontal and vertical smilies -- it's weird, but there are certain emotions that I feel can only be communicated with certain faces.
  • I personally don't condone their use, but here are some more kaomoji. If that link isn't enough for you, you can always search Google Japan for 顔文字. For anyone wondering this is one of those "be careful what you ask for" things. (Self note: I do not need to comment every time someone mentions Japan.)