Emoticons originated with text representations.

 

Graphical emoticons range from basic to highly creative.

A portmanteau of the English words emotion (or emote) and icon, an emoticon is a symbol or combination of symbols used to convey emotional content in written or message form. Image File history File links Emoticon. ... Image File history File links Emoticon. ... Image File history File links Smiley. ... Image File history File links Smiley_green_alien_KO.svg‎ File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ... Portmanteau has two meanings. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

History

Emoticons published in the March 30, 1881 issue of Puck.

The National Telegraphic Review and Operators Guide in April 1857 documented the use of the number 73 in Morse code to express "love and kisses" (later reduced to the more formal "best regards"). Dodge's Manual in 1908 documented the reintroduction of "love and kisses" as the number 88. Gajadhar and Green comment that both Morse code abbreviations are more succinct than modern abbreviations such as LOL.^[1][2] Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... is the 89th day of the year (90th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1881 (MDCCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... The cover of the April 23, 1884 issue. ... 1922 Chart of the Morse Code Letters and Numerals Morse code is a method for transmitting telegraphic information, using standardized sequences of short and long elements to represent the letters, numerals, punctuation and special characters of a message. ... Abbreviations differ from prosigns for Morse Code in that they observe normal interletter spacing; that is, they are not run together the way prosigns are. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Internet slang. ...

Typographical emoticons were published in 1881 by the U.S. satirical magazine Puck. In 1912 Ambrose Bierce proposed "an improvement in punctuation — the snigger point, or note of cachinnation: it is written thus ___/! and presents a smiling mouth. It is to be appended, with the full stop, [or exclamation mark as Bierce's later example used] to every jocular or ironical sentence".^[3] The cover of the April 23, 1884 issue. ... Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – 1914?) was an American editorialist, journalist, short-story writer and satirist, today best known for his Devils Dictionary. ...

Emoticons had already come into use in sci-fi fandom in the 1940s,^[4] although there seems to have been a lapse in cultural continuity between the communities. Fandom (from the noun fan and the affix -dom, as in kingdom, dukedom, etc. ...

An early instance of using text characters to represent a sideways smiling (and frowning) face occurred in an ad for the MGM movie Lili in the New York Herald Tribune, March 10, 1953, page 20, cols. 4-6. (See "Creation of :-) and :-(" section below.) MGM logo Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer or MGM, is a large media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of cinema and television programs. ... Lili is a musical film which opened in March, 1953. ... The New York Herald Tribune was a newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald. ...

In 1963, the "smiley face", a yellow button with two black dots representing eyes and an upturned thick curve representing a mouth, was created by freelance artist Harvey Ball. It was realized on order of a large insurance company as part of a campaign to bolster the morale of its employees and soon became a big hit. This smiley presumably inspired many later emoticons; the most basic graphic emoticon that depicts this is in fact a small, yellow, smiley face. The smiley has gone through many incarnations over the years, but it consistently retains the same features. ... Harvey Ross Ball (10 July 1921 – 12 April 2001) is famous for his invention of the Smiley. ...

In a New York Times interview in April 1969, Alden Whitman asked writer Vladimir Nabokov: "How do you rank yourself among writers (living) and of the immediate past?" Nabokov answered: "I often think there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile — some sort of concave mark, a supine round bracket, which I would now like to trace in reply to your question." ^[5] The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... Alden Whitman (27 October 1913 - 4 September 1990) was an American journalist. ... This page is about the novelist. ...

Proto-emoticons

Starting around 1976, the people on the PLATO System were using emoticons. They had many of the advantages of later character based emoticons because they could be used anywhere that you could type text and new emoticons could be created whenever a user thought a new one up. They also had many of the advantages of later graphical emoticons because they used character overstriking which created graphical images. PLATO, an apronym for Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operation, was one of the first generalized computer-based teaching systems, originally built by the University of Illinois and later taken over by Control Data (CDC), who provided the machines it ran on. ...

Several Internet websites —such as BT's Connected Earth^[6]— assert that Kevin Mackenzie proposed -) as a joke-marker in April 1979, on a message board called MsgGroup. The idea was to indicate tongue-in-cheek — the hyphen represented a tongue, not a nose. Others used :-) for tongue-in-cheek, with the colon representing teeth. Also used was -:) to indicate sticking out your tongue, in derision or anger. Although similar to a sideways smiling face, the intended interpretation was different and this does not appear to have inspired the later smileys. BT Group plc (formerly British Telecommunications plc) which trades as BT (pronounced Bee tee) (also previously as British Telecom and is still commonly known as such amongst the general public) is the privatised UK state telecommunications operator. ... Sarcasm is the making of remarks intended to mock the person referred to (who is normally the person addressed), a situation or thing. ... This article is about the punctuation mark. ...

Creation of :-) and :-(

The creator of the original ASCII emoticons :-) and :-(, with a specific suggestion that they be used to express emotion, was Scott Fahlman;^[7] the text of his original proposal, posted to the Carnegie Mellon University computer science general board on 19 September 1982 (11:44), was considered lost for a long time. It was however recovered twenty years later by Jeff Baird, from old backup tapes.^[8] Image:ASCII fullsvg There are 95 printable ASCII characters, numbered 32 to 126. ... ḌScott Elliot Fahlman (born March 21, 1948, in Medina, Ohio, USA) is a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University. ... Carnegie Mellon University (also known as CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. ... Ward Christensen and the computer that ran the first public Bulletin Board Systems, CBBS A Bulletin board system, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to dial into the system over a phone line (or Telnet) and, using a terminal program, perform functions such as downloading... is the 262nd day of the year (263rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar). ...

 19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :) From: Scott E Fahlman <Fahlman at Cmu-20c> I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers: :-) Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes - given current trends. For this, use :-( 

Graphical replacement

In Web forums and instant messengers, text emoticons are often automatically replaced with small corresponding images, which came to be called emoticons as well. Similarly, in some versions of Microsoft Word, the Auto Correct feature replaces basic smileys such as :-) and :-( with a single smiley-like character. Originally, these image emoticons were fairly simple and replaced only the most straightforward and common character sequences, but over time they became so complex that the more specialized emoticons are often input using a menu or popup windows, sometimes listing hundreds of items. Some of these graphical emoticons do not actually represent faces or emotions; for example, an "emoticon" showing a guitar might be used to represent music. Further, some instant messaging software is designed to play a sound upon receiving certain emoticons. Gaia Online, the largest English language forum-based community as of April 2005 — powered by a modified version of phpBB. An Internet forum is a web application which provides for discussion, often in conjunction with online communities. ... // Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. ... Microsoft Word is a word processing application from Microsoft. ...

An August 2004 issue of the Risks Digest (comp.risks on USENET) pointed out a problem with such features which are not under the sender's control: Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name. ...

It's hard to know in advance what character-strings will be parsed into what kind of unintended image. A colleague was discussing his 401(k) plan with his boss, who happens to be female, via instant messaging. He discovered, to his horror, that the boss's instant-messaging client was rendering the "(k)" as a big pair of red smoochy lips.^[9]

Emoticons are also commonly used in online computer games. The 401(k) plan is a type of employer-sponsored defined contribution retirement plan under section 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code () in the United States, and some other countries. ...

The most common type of emoticon is the "smiley" which is simply a cartoon-looking face showing a smile. This has evolved into a variety of different facial expressions including frowns, angry grimaces, blushing, crying, looks of surprise and thousands more. Emoticons have also expanded beyond simple cartoon facial expressions to a variety of still or moving Italic text images, including words, character actions, and images.^[10]

Western style

Traditionally, the emoticon in Western style is written from left to right, the way one reads and writes in most Western cultures. Thus, most commonly, emoticons have the eyes on the left, followed by the nose and mouth. To more easily recognize them, tilt your head toward your left shoulder (or occasionally toward your right shoulder if the "top" of the emoticon is toward the right).

Common examples

A list of some of the most common emoticons follows. As displayed here, they all use a relatively consistent form, but each of them can also be transformed by being rotated, having the hyphen omitted, and so on (see Variation below). More comprehensive lists may be found under External links below.

Variation

There are endless possibilities because people are very good at creating and interpreting pictures as faces. See ASCII art. ASCII art, an artistic medium relying primarily on computers for presentation, consists of pictures pieced together from characters (preferably from the 95 printable characters defined by ASCII). ...

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).In some circles it has become acceptable to omit the hyphen, whether a colon or an equal sign is used for the eyes [2]. In other areas of usage, people prefer the larger, more traditional emoticon :-). In general, similar-looking characters are commonly substituted for one another: for instance, o, O, and 0 can all be used interchangeably, sometimes for subtly different effect.

A few people turn the smiley around, a "left-handed" smiley (:

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. Also, sometimes, the user can replace the brackets used for the mouth with other, similar shapes, such as ] and [ instead of ) and ( . A standard Hebrew keyboard showing both Hebrew and English (QWERTY) letters. ... For other uses, see Scandinavia (disambiguation). ... The shift key on a modern Windows keyboard The shift key is a modifier key on a keyboard, used to type capital letters and other alternate upper characters. ...

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 surprised). The umlaut mark (or simply umlaut) and the trema or diaeresis mark (or simply diaeresis) are two diacritics consisting of a pair of dots placed over a letter. ...

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. Despair, Inc is a company based in Austin, Texas, that produces posters and souvenirs that satirize the motivational indoctrination common in corporate environments. ...

Some emoticons are created to resemble video game consoles such as the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS. Game console redirects here. ... The PlayStation Portable (officially abbreviated PSP)[5] is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. ... The Nintendo DS (sometimes abbreviated NDS or more commonly DS) is a handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. ...

Posture emoticons

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2008)

orz (sometimes seen as _|￣|○, OTL Or2, Orz, On_, OTZ, O7Z, Sto, Jto, _no) is a Japanese emoticon representing a kneeling or bowing person, with the "o" being the head, the "r" being the arms and part of the body, and the "z" being part of the body and the legs. This "stick" figure represents failure and despair. It is also commonly (mis-)used for representing a great admiration for (sometimes with an overtone of sarcasm) someone else's view or action. This spawned a subculture in late 2004.^[11] In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a set of people with a set of behaviors and beliefs, culture, which could be distinct or hidden, that differentiate them from the larger culture to which they belong. ...

Though people generally use the pictograph to show that they have failed and/or they are in despair, some users use it to imply being doubled over in laughter. It is not to be read phonetically; the letters are spelled out. Orz should not 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," or "I'd like to be your friend."

On imageboards, it has been used not only for failure and despair, but also as a symbol for the kowtow, illustrating a person bowing down in worship of a certain picture that was posted. Screenshot from iichan. ... Kowtowing Kowtow, from the Chinese term kòu tóu (Cantonese: kau tàuh) (叩頭), is the act of deep respect shown by kneeling and bowing so low as to touch the head to the ground. ...

Another common posture emoticon is OGC, which depicts a man in the process of masturbation. The emoticon is used to express appreciation or sarcasm toward a sexual topic or image, it became widely used after awareness was raised by a subsequently revised logo for the Office of Government Commerce.^[12] The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) is an organization in the government of the United Kingdom. ...

Eastern style

It has been suggested that emoji be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

It has been suggested that kaoani be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

Users from East Asia popularized a style of emoticons that can be understood without tilting one's head to the left. This style arose on ASCII NET of Japan in 1986.^[13] Image File history File links Mergefrom. ... Emoji (絵文字) is the Japanese name for the picture characters or emoticons for use in wireless messages and webpages. ... Image File history File links Mergefrom. ... A kaoani Kaoani comes from the japanese kao (face) and ani (animation). ... This article is about the geographical region. ...

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). Different emotions can be expressed by changing the character representing the eyes, for example ' T ' can be used to express crying or sadness (T_T). The emphasis on the eyes is reflected in the common usage of emoticons that use only the eyes, e.g. ^^. Looks of embarrassment are either represented by (x_x) or (-_-). Characters like hyphens or periods 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. ^^ or >.< or o_O or O.O or <.<;; A quotation mark ", apostrophe ', or semicolon ; can be added to the emoticon to imply apprehension or embarrassment, in the same way that a sweat drop is used in anime films. Sometimes smiley (^^) is misunderstood - people thinking it represents eyebrows. Many other characters can be appended to also indicate arms or hands, e.g. <(^_^)> or (^o^)/ or ⊂( ﾟ ヮﾟ)⊃ or <(-.-<) or v^.^V or d(^.^)b. This article is about the typographical symbol. ... For other uses, see Eye (disambiguation). ... The underscore _ is the character with ASCII value 95. ... For technical reasons, :) and some similar combinations starting with : redirect here. ... The Pokemon character Meowth shown in a state of embarassment with a sweat drop In manga and anime, a sweat drop is a common visual convention in which a character is drawn with one or more prominent beads of sweat on their brow. ...

Microsoft IME 2002 (Japanese) or later supports the use of both forms of emoticons by enabling Microsoft IME Spoken Language Dictionary. In IME 2007, it was moved to Emoticons dictionary. Operation of a typical Japanese romaji based IME. An input method editor (IME) is a program or operating system component that allows computer users to enter characters and symbols not found on their keyboard. ...

Western use of East Asian style

English-language anime forums adopted those emoticons that could be used with the standard ASCII characters available on western keyboards. Because of this, they are often called "anime style" emoticons in the English-speaking Internet. They have since seen use in more mainstream venues, including online gaming, instant-messaging, and other non-anime related forums. Emoticons such as <(^.^)>, <(<.<)>, <(o_o<), (//_;) (;-;+, 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. The parentheses are usually dropped when used in the English language context, and the underscore of the mouth may be extended as an intensifier, e.g. ^____^ for very happy. The famous kirby emotion is (>^_^)><(^_^<) . Animé redirects here. ... For the video game system, see Nintendo Entertainment System. ... Computer and video games redirects here. ... Kirby ) is a fictional character and hero of Nintendos Kirby video game series created by Masahiro Sakurai and developed by HAL Laboratory. ...

Mixture of western and East Asian style

Exposure to both western and East Asian style emoticons or emoji through web blogs, instant messaging, and forums featuring a blend of Western and Asian pop culture, has given rise to emoticons that have an upright viewing format. The parentheses are similarly dropped in the English language context and the emoticons only use alphanumeric characters and the most commonly used English punctuation marks. Emoticons such as -O-, -3-, -w-, ' - ', ; - ;, and particularly the emoticon .V., are used to convey mixed emoticons that are more difficult to convey with traditional emoticons. The emoticon -O- is used to express a sense of slight disappointment and embarrassment. In 2007, the emoticon .V. was created by S.C. Tsang in order to abbreviate the "angry/scary" emoticon ./. (which is composed of two inverted slashes and two periods) for convenience. In general, these emoticons do not fall into any particular subcategory of emoticons.

Examples:

•  ?.?
• >.<
• XD / xD
• >3<
• o_O
• T__T
• O.O
• ^.^
• >.>"
• u_u
• -.-"
• *_*
• e_e
• n_n
• X3
• o.O
• O.o
• T_T
• <(^_^)> (Kirby)

2channel style

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. For other users of the word/name byte, see byte (disambiguation). ... Image:ASCII fullsvg There are 95 printable ASCII characters, numbered 32 to 126. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (or azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is an alphabet used for several East and South Slavic languages; (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... ASCII art, an artistic medium relying primarily on computers for presentation, consists of pictures pieced together from characters (preferably from the 95 printable characters defined by ASCII). ... 2channel Shift_JIS art (AA). An example of American Shift_JIS art. ...

Users of 2channel in particular have developed a wide variety of unique emoticons using obscure characters. Some have taken on a life of their own and become characters in their own right, like Mona. “DQN” redirects here. ... Mona saying Omae mo nā Monā (モナー) is the most well-known Shift JIS art character. ...

Graphic emoticons

Graphic emoticons (small images that often automatically replace typed text) are commonly used instead of the older text variants, especially on Internet forums and instant messenger (IM) programs. These are often heavily animated, some taking up to at least a full five seconds to fully loop, and sometimes (mostly on IMs) with sound embedded, to bring it to full life. A typical Internet forum discussion, with common elements such as quotes and spoiler brackets A page from a forum showcasing emoticons and Internet slang An Internet forum is a web application for holding discussions and posting user generated content. ... A screenshot of PowWow, one of the first instant messengers with a graphical user interface An instant messenger is a client which allows instant text communication between two or more people through a network such as the Internet. ...

Emotisounds

A portmanteau of emotion and sound, an emotisound is a brief sound transmitted and played back during the viewing of a message, typically an IM message or e-mail message. The sound is intended to communicate an emotional subtext. This article is about audible acoustic waves. ... Subtext is content of a book, play, film or television series which is not announced explicitly by the characters (or author) but is implicit or becomes something understood by the reader / viewer as the production unfolds. ...

This section is written like an advertisement. Please help rewrite this section from a neutral point of view.  (June 2008)

Music Emoticons (Muzicons)

Combination of music and emoticons that helps to show feeling "more proper", because music and emotions go hand in hand. Realised by Muzicons. Muzicon is a flash music player with emotional icons, that can be placed at blog, site or any web page. There are several ways of using muzicon widget

Video EmotiClips

There has been a recent emergence of very short video clips, now referred to as EmotiClips that is a video snippet containing an expression of emotion. It can be shared on websites, in emails, and through mobile phone messaging to express feelings – not unlike a video greeting card. This new form of communication has been used recently by MTV and Paramount Home Entertainment to promote the arrival of MTV’s The Hills^[14]. This idea and design for EmotiClips were inspired by emoticons but created by an ad firm^[15]. This article is about the original U.S. music television channel. ... Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production and distribution company, based in Hollywood, California. ...

Intellectual property rights related to emoticons

In 2000, Despair, Inc. obtained a U.S. trademark registration for the "frowny" emoticon :-( when used on "greeting cards, posters and art prints." In 2001, they issued a satirical press release, announcing that they would sue Internet users who typed the frowny; the joke backfired and the company received a storm of protest when its mock release was posted at technology news website Slashdot.^[16] Despair, Inc is a company based in Austin, Texas, that produces posters and souvenirs that satirize the motivational indoctrination common in corporate environments. ... “(TM)” redirects here. ... Slashdot, often abbreviated as /.[1], is a science, science fiction, and technology-related news website owned by SourceForge, Inc. ...

Patented drop down menu for composing phone mail text message with emoticons. US patent 6987991

A number of patent applications have been filed on inventions that assist in communicating with emoticons. A few of these have issued as US patents. US patent 6987991, for example, discloses a method developed in 2001 to send emoticons over a cell phone using a drop down menu. The advantage over the prior art was that the user saved on the number of keystrokes. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for the invention described and claimed by that application. ... For other uses, see Patent (disambiguation). ... This article or section cites very few or no references or sources. ...

In Finland, the emoticons :-), =), =(, :) and :( were trademarked in 2006 for use with various products and services.^[17] “(TM)” redirects here. ...

See also

• Smiley
• Kaoani
• Emoji
• ASCII art
• Internet slang
• Hieroglyph
• List of common emoticons

For other uses of smiley and smiley face, see Smiley (disambiguation). ... A kaoani Kaoani comes from the japanese kao (face) and ani (animation). ... Emoji (絵文字) is the Japanese name for the picture characters or emoticons for use in wireless messages and webpages. ... ASCII art, an artistic medium relying primarily on computers for presentation, consists of pictures pieced together from characters (preferably from the 95 printable characters defined by ASCII). ... Internet slang, Internet language, Netspeak, Chat Room Shorthand, Computer Language, Tech-Talk (as used by some chatroom users) or Nu English is slang that Internet users have coined and promulgated. ... Hieroglyphics redirects here. ... This is a list of common emoticons. ...

References

is the 198th day of the year (199th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 263rd day of the year (264th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 263rd day of the year (264th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 211th day of the year (212th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 115th day of the year (116th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 126th day of the year (127th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 151st day of the year (152nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

Further reading

• Walther, J. B., & D'Addario, K. P. (2001). "The impacts of emoticons on message interpretation in computer-mediated communication". Social Science Computer Review 19: 323–345. 
• Wolf, Peter. 2000. "Emotional Expression Online: Gender Differences in Emoticon Use." CyberPsychology & Behavior 3: 827-833.

External links

History

• 1976: PLATO emoticons Character overstriking patterns
• 1982: The First Smiley :-) Mike Jones' article about Fahlman's CMU post (with his testimony) -
• 2007: 25 years of the smiley face Article charting the history of the emoticon and its 25th anniversary
• 2008: Expert unveils 'pre-history' of emoticons News story on the Medieval roots of emoticons

The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. ...

Examples

• List of AOL messenger emoticons
• List of GTalk emoticons
• List of MSN messenger emoticons
• List of Yahoo messenger emoticons
• Insert smileys and other emoticons
• List of graphic emoticons
• List of MSN graphical emoticons

Japanese emoticons

• Anikaos Japanese Anime emoticons list
• 2-byte Japanese emoticons
• Article - A Guide to Anime Emoticons Western usage of kaomoji
• Koto Phone in Japan Flickr set - Example of default kaomoji on Japanese cell phone
• List of Microsoft Office Input Method Editor emoticons (Japanese)