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Thursday Sep 20, 2007

Smiley like you mean it

This week marks the 25th anniversary of emoticons, those cheeky communication symbols that we wouldn't be without when chatting online. Some bloke called Professor Scott Fahlman claims to be the inventor - and I thought it was one of my mates in the mid 1990s.

I remember the first time someone poked their electronic tongue out at me - we were flirting via email and I was smitten. But obviously that's one of the most basic smileys and from there the guy:

sent me a rose ---->----->--@

laughed with me

and then cried when I dumped him :'-(

OK, well that's how I like to remember the story anyway .

These days emoticons on websites and mobile phones can look really garish. Indeed, some of the smileys in TheSite.org chat room are just downright hilarious. I'm also not digging the facebook emotions application. A little subtlety in style doesn't go amiss and the emoticons available on our discussion boards (see image) are easily my favourite. 


Smaller is definitely better.

 

Posted by Helen ( 1:24 PM ) Link to this post  |  Comments[0]