Emoticon

An emoticon, also called a smiley, is a sequence of ordinary printable ASCII characters, such as :-), ;o), ^_^ or :-(, or a small image, intended to represent a human facial expression and convey an emotion. Emoticons are a form of paralanguage commonly used in e-mail messages, in online bulletin boards, online forums, instant messengers, or in chat rooms, without them simple statements could be misinterpreted. Sometime during 1981, Scott Fahlman (now a Principle Research Scientist in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University), devised a scheme for encoding and conveying one's feelings in small text "glyphs" to overcome this frustration.

The word emoticon is a portmanteau which popular etymology bases on emotion and icon. In truth, the second element is con, short for console , not icon. A similar portmanteau, verticon (based on vertical and (i?)con), is sometimes used when referring to the East Asian style of emoticon.

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 a consistent form, but each of them can also be transformed by being rotated, having the hyphen omitted, and/or by replacing the eyes symbol. An equal sign is often used for the eyes in place of the colon, without changing the meaning of the emoticon. In these instances, the hyphen is almost always either omitted or, occasionally, replaced with an 'o' as in =o). Lately it has become common to omit the hyphen, whether a colon or an equal sign is used for the eyes [1]. Please note that the definitions for the following examples are not absolute definitions rather a general idea of their meaning.

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 net addicts tend to drop the  : representing the eyes [leaving ) instead of  :) ] so what was intended to be a smile could be interpreted as a frown.

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 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 a month later in response to the reaction their claim had generated.

XD (used to represent laughing) supposedly became popular on the internet shortly after it was used in the television show, 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 (a sideways X for their eyes).

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.

:) or :-)	smile
:-))	Really happy
:( or :-( or :<	frown
X-P or X-p	knocked out or dead, or strangely joking
:-]	polite smile, or sometimes a complimented blush
@=)	falling university tomorrow initiation
:-[	another frown, or sometimes an embarrassed blush
:-/ or :-\	skepticism, annoyance, uneasiness, or a slight frown; dissatisfaction, lack of favourable opinion on the subject, undecided
:-|	indecision, deadpan, a lack of response, or indifference; also often used with a contrasting statement to convey biting sarcasm (e.g. "That was hilarious. :-|")
;) or !-) or ;-p	wink
:*	kiss
:-D or :D	wide grin, happy smile
:-P or :-p or :-r or :-þ	tongue sticking out; used to convey a joke, light-hearted sarcasm, inappropriateness, or a light hearted groan, as in "Ugh". Many users still interpret this as a raspberry-sound, especially long-time users of emoticons.
B-) or 8-)	wearing glasses (usually interpreted as sunglasses)
:-o or :-O or :-0 or :O	surprise, shock
:S or :-s or :-S	confusion, incoherent
c-oo	cool sunglasses
:-8 or :-B or :-F	buck teeth
:-x	sealed lips; used to convey "I shouldn't have said that" or sometimes shocked silence; can be taken to mean "no comment"
:-9	licking lips
t('.'t)	kirby conveying a rude gesture (flipping off)
^-^; or ^-^;;	embarrassed, "sweatdrop"
T_T or TT^TT or T-T	crying or skepticism
^_^ or ^^ or ^.^ or (^_^)	another version of :), derived from the happy expression from japanese anime cartoons.
:'-( or :_( or :*( or :…( or ;_; or ;0;	shedding a tear
>:o or :@	Angry/Yelling
>:( or >=(	Angry/Grumpy
;p	Wink Razz
:o)	clown face, can mean tongue-in-cheek
;-^)	tongue-in-cheek
};-> or >:-) or }:-) or >:D or >:P	eyebrows or horns; evil, being mean, a devil
}:=3) or }:=8)	a dragon (smile version), complete with horns and snout
0:-)	halo over the head, an angel, innocence
XD or xD	childish laugh, or laughing really hard
D-: or D:	horror (read right to left)
:V	mouth opened comically wide (in some communities, e.g. Ragnarok Online, it is considered a duck)
:-t	angry
:->	grin
:*)	blush; (sometimes used to illustrate "drunk")
:-)*	kiss 2
:^o	liar liar
:-&	tongue-tied
:-{D	mustache
>:o~	Angry; drooling (frothing at mouth with anger)
;(	Sad wink/Crying
(:3=	Walrus
:3	Sign of cuteness, or "buttface"
:> or ;>	witty, or pleased
>D or >)	Evil
>( or D< "or" >P	Mad, Furious
.!.. or _|_	the middle finger
:J	variation of the typical smiling face
^o.o^ or <(o.o<)	dancing
.-.	inverted
<3	"heart" as in "I <3 U"; sometimes parodically extended to "<33333" or replaced with "less-than-three"
<8	"heart" as in "I <8 you" but shows infinite love. This maintains the heart shape and also maintains a similarity between 8 and the infinity symbol.
</3	a broken heart, often used alone
<#	"hate" as in "I <# you" (the # symbol shares the 3 key on some keyboard layouts)
(_l_) or (_x_) or (_o_) or ( Y )	a butt
(_>@<_) or E(_O_)3 or E@3 or /-{ }-\	Goatse
( @ ) ( @ ) or (oYo) or (.).) or (.)(.) or (.Y.)	breasts
({;}) & ///<.>\\\	vagina
(i)	vulva
8==D	penis and testicles
~°	sperm
o[O_o]o	Fall
|_	"take a seat"
\_	"recline it" (stronger form of "take a seat")
_ _	"full recline" (strongest form of "take a seat")
orz or OTL or OTZ	a person slamming his or her head into the ground while on all fours - this is used as a graphical representation of "rolling on the floor, laughing my ass off".
<[+]=^(	"The Sad Pope"
Q('.'Q)	fighting kirby
^5	high five
%-}	amused
\-o	bored
0:)	angel
:Q	what?
:'-)	crying with joy
:-*	oops
8)	froggy
:()	can't stop talking
(:|	egg head
8-|	nerd
:,(	crying
:-6	exhausted
|-0	yawning
:-@	screaming
|-)	hee hee
%-)	confused
8-]	wow, maaan
:-)(-:	married
:-{}	blowing a kiss
~:-0	baby
:-V	shouting
¬_¬	sarcasm or mean looks
86	nerd sticking tongue out
(\:=)	Hitler

o/ _o/ .o/	waving with or raising the left hand (person facing you)
\o \o_ \o.	waving with or raising the right hand (person facing you); this is sometimes used to mimic a Nazi salute
/o	scratching one's head
/o\	despair, cowering
\o/	joy, note that \m/ and \,,/ is "METAL"
<o/ _o> <o>	dancing
<o_/ \_o/	fencing
>-<o	jumping, diving
o7	saluting
>.<	frustrated
*\o/*	cheerleader
<o o>	honor
/=O=\	goatse
$_$	Feeling rich
¯\(º_o)/¯	shrugging, confusion, doubt
,,!,,( o.O ),,!,,	Flipping off, angry
=|:-)=	Uncle Sam

They're also usable for displaying "animations", e.g. a crowning process:

o/" _o

o_ "\o

o_ <ö

o/ \ö/

Or for displaying how to dance "YMCA":

\o/ ^o^ o< /o\

Posture emoticons

orz (sometimes seen as OTL Or2, On_, OTZ, O7Z, Sto, Jto, _no, _|￣|○) spawned a subculture in late 2004.[2] 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. Though people use the pictograph to show that they have failed and/or they are in despair, some people, in Taiwan, use it to show that they laugh a lot so that they kneel down. It is not read phonetically, the letters are spelled out. Not to be confused with m(_ _)m, which means an apology.

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., a la "nice guy syndrome".

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.

Handicons

Recently developed are "handicons" to represent hand gestures. They can be seen either right or left-handed (the examples below are shown from the perspective of facing a right-handed gesture). Many variantions use "." as a knuckle instead of "n" or "m". For the other hand, one simply reverses the order of the line and switches the knuckle (< for left, > for right).

Left___Right__Txt

File:JackalLeft.gif File:JackalRight.gif <lml or \m/	Devil horns or rock jackal; commonly the hand gesture for "rock on" among rock fans (left)
File:LeftBird.gif File:RightBird.gifnlm>	Flashing "the bird" (right)
File:LeftDrEvil.gif File:RightDrEvil.gif<mnl	The Doctor Evil pinky as popularized by Austin Powers
File:PropsLeft.gif File:PropsRight.gif<mm	Props or the knuckle (often returned likewise as a greeting)
<Vm	The Peace sign
<\V/	The Vulcan (Star Trek), Vulcan salute or "live long and prosper"

East Asian style

Users from East Asia (particularly Japanese language speakers those who visit 2channel) popularized a style of emoticons known as verticons (顔文字, kaomoji, literally "face characters"), 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 analogous to ASCII art's level of complexity. To type such emoticons, the input editor that is used to type Japanese on a user's system is equipped with a dictionary of emoticons, after which the user simply types the Japanese word (or something close to it) that represents the desired emoticon to convert the input into such complicated emoticons. Such expressions are known as Shift JIS art.

Basic examples

m(_ _)m	bowing
(`ヘ´)	annoyed
（´・ω・｀）	deflated
（ ´Д｀）	yelling, or panting
（　ﾟДﾟ）	surprised, or loudmouthed
┐('～`；)┌	don't know the answer
（´∀｀）	carefree
（　´_ゝ`）	indifferent
Σ(゜д゜;)	shocked
(*´Д`)	heavy breathing
＇へ＇凸	flipping someone the bird
╮(─▽─)╭	"who cares?"
ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━!!!!!	"It's here", a general expression of excitement that something has appeared or happened.

Anime style

English anime forums spawned a form of kaomoji adapted for single-byte encoding. They have since seen use in more mainstream venues, including online gaming, instant-messaging, and other non-anime related forums. These emoticons are usually found in a format similar to (*_*), where the asterisks indicate the eyes, the central character, usually an underscore, the mouth, and the parentheses, the outline of the face. A large number of different characters can be used to replace the eyes, which usually is where the emoticon derives its emotive aspect (contrasting the Western emoticons' emoting through the mouth). The emphasis on the eyes is reflected in the common usage of emoticons that use only the eyes, e.g. ^^. Either a hyphen or a period can replace the underscore; the period is often used for a smaller, "cuter" mouth or to represent a nose, e.g. (^.^). Alternatively, the mouth/nose can be left out entirely, e.g. (^^). The parentheses also can often be replaced with braces, e.g. {^_^}. Many times, the parentheses are left out completely, e.g. o.o . A quotation mark ", apostrophe ', or semicolon ; can be appended to the emoticon to imply apprehension or embarrassment, à la the anime sweat drop. Many other characters can be appended to also indicate arms or hands, e.g. <(^_^)>. Anime style emoticons which include the parentheses, mouth or nose, and arms (especially those represented by the inequality signs < or >) also are often referred to as "Kirbies" in reference to their likeness to Nintendo's video game character, Kirby.

Basic examples

(^_^) or (^-^) or (^ ^)	smiley
(`_^) or (^_~)	wink
(>_<)	pretending to be cute, or pain, or frustration
(<_>)	sad
(^o^)	singing, or laughing maniacally
t(-_-t)	flipping the bird
\(^o^)/	very excited (raising hands)
(-_-) or (~_~) or (=_=)	annoyance, resignation, or sleeping (eyes shut), grumpy
(-_-;) or (^_^') or (^_^);;	nervousness, or sweatdrop (embarrassed; semicolon can be repeated)
(-_-#) or (-_-¤)	vein (used to show frustration)
(¬_¬)	eyeing something or someone, sometimes used as an expression of rolling one's eyes
(<_<) or (>_>) or (c_c)	skepticism, looking around suspiciously
(;_;) or (T_T)	crying
(@_@)	dazed
`(•.°)~	druggy, trippin'
(o_O)	confused surprise, disturbed
(0_<)	flinch, nervous wink
(O_O)	shocked (also O.o - one eye smaller than the other)
(._.)	intimidated, sad, ashamed
($_$)	money eyes; thinking about money
(x_x) or (+_+)	dead or knocked out; giving up, lost, confused
(n_n)	pleased
(u_u)	annoyance, sarcasm, sometimes disappointment
(9_9)	eye rolling
(e_e)	mischief, distrust
(e_o) or (o_e)	eye twitching
(*_*)	star-struck
(",)	smirk
("o)	side shocked
(-.-)zzZ or -_-zzZ	sleeping
(o)_(o)	alternative for tired; sometimes used to illustrate crazed
;o; or ;O;	crying loudly/shouting
T_T or TT_TT or Y_Y	exaggerated crying, so that the eyes are closed and tears stream down the face
I_I	"What?", mellow

new Faces include: (^v^) or use v in place of _.

Graphic emoticons

Graphic emoticons (small images that often automatically replaced typed text) commonly are used instead of the older text variants, especially on Internet forums and instant messenger programs.

Examples

(ô ô)	boy (sometimes also used to indicate surprise)
(ö ö)	girl
(ó ò)	surprised, scared
(ò ó)	angry
(ó ô)	quizzical or "Indeed" (designed to mimic Star Trek's Mr. Spock)
(╥_─)	annoyed, hiding frustration, dread
=^_^=	blushing, or a cat face (mischievous)
-^_^-	blushing
^n_n^	catgirl or boy
d-_-b	listening to music, labeling title afterwards
~~~~>_<~~~~	weeping horribly
<(^_^)>,(>^_^)>, etc.	dancing, especially used to specifically show Kirby dancing
(>^_^)> <(^_^<)	hugging
(>^(>O_o)>	sexual intercourse, normally used to depict rape and/or anal sex (extensible)
( ~^_^)~	dancing
(9ò_ó)-o	fighting, throwing a punch
/¯\_/°^_^°\_/¯\	Sailor Moon (extensible)
w-('u')-w	Kilroy was here (extensible)
p(^o^)q	good luck
(b~_^)b	thumbs-up
p(-_-)p	thumbs-down
t(-_-t) or ,,l,(>.<),l,,	flipping off
(^^ .)\\//	giving the V-sign
m <(~_~)> m	kitten
~~(=_=)~~	breakdance
\m/>_<\m/	rockin' out
(¬_¬)/¯	"It's good... to go!"
\0-0/	wearing glasses (nerd)
x_x	whatever
¯\(o_º)/¯	a shrug, confused misunderstanding
(_8^(o)	"D'oh!"
(ρ_-)o	sleepy / rubbing eyes
ʄ σ,..,σ ʄ	ghost
( ._.)ø	writing
(._.)	Sometimes used in place of (o.o); used as shock or confusion. [ (.-.) is just the upside down version of this emoticon]

File:Cry-tpvgames.gif	crying
	confused
	sad
	shocked
	smile
	odd, crazy, etc.

External links

History

• 1976: PLATO emoticons Character overstriking patterns
• 1982: The First Smiley :-) Mike Jones' article about Fahlman's CMU post (with his testimony)
• 1982: Smiley Lore :-) by Scott E. Fahlman

Examples

• Emoticons Center Emoticons for all
• Travis Carden's Dictionary of Emoticons
• List of MSN messenger emoticons
• List of Yahoo messenger emoticons
• List of AOL messenger emoticons
• List of Gmail chat emoticons
• List of smileys used at h2g2
• Useful Emoticon Packs

Japanese emoticons

• Anikaos Japanese Anime emoticons list
• Japanese/anime emoticons list
• 2-byte Japanese emoticons
• AA(Japanese ASCII art) underground thread @ hiding place (English version)

Korean emoticons

• Mun-Ja-Wong-Guk Kingdom of SMS Template:Ko icon
• Sul-Ki's Emoticon world Template:Ko icon
• Emoticon for SMS Template:Ko icon

See also

• Smiley
• Kaoani
• ASCII art
• ASCII comic
• Internet slang
• Egyptian hieroglyph