These are a selection of the ’emoticon’ graphics included in Microsoft’s Windows Messenger, and AOL’s ICQ.
The left column comes from Windows Messenger – included in Windows XP.
The right column is from the latest version ICQ, (perpetual) beta 2002a.
Uncanny.
We, the revolutionaries, peeped at the banquet of the rich.
Ramon, awed, exclaimed,
“Look they have silver oranges and silver orioles
to decorate their fork handles!”
I was surprised at my wide selections of emoticons when I installed trillian (which includes aim, icq, msn, mirc, and yahoo).
The msn icons rock my farm.
I added in the emoticons from AOL IM (on Win2K). I wonder who came up with these icons in the first place. Are these the top 9 emotions expressed by online chatters?
I think they are the classic set of smileys. But I’m not sure. I wont even get into the crazy things chatroom people are saying (although The Onion did it well a few weeks ago) but they do find new ways to convey every possible emotion and situation. I remember the days when it was just ‘hah’ or ‘‘. None of this ‘LMAO’, ‘ROFL’, ‘ROFLMAO’, ‘ROFMLAOOEDLKF’ nonsense.
Thanks Jason – The AOL icons are the same as the ICQ 2001 icons as well (the ones I have shown are v.2002).
I would classify them as follows:
The saddest thing about these happy faces, like their use in Walmart ads, is that someone invented the image in the late 1960’s in the course of their employment and then the employer went on to not protect the copyright in the image thus letting the damn thing loose on society without the creative person actually receiving anything for her creativity.
I always understood 😉 and 🙂 and ;-(. They were elegant and understated. These yellow things are pornographic.
While I am not one with you on your choice of porn subject matter, I do agree that the sideways face if a source of creative expression such as:
;~) winking smiling guy with broken nose
;-{) winking smiling man with whiskers
/;-{- winking man with beret and goatee
I remember having this exact same conversation in a B.A.T.E chat room a “while” ago.
Pornographic Peter?
:-
: >
Ummm… that hyphen was a hell of a longer in the text box… I swear. (is it cold in here?)
Pornographic: Lurid or sensational material.
Lurid: Glowing or shining with the glare of fire through a haze.
I was going to write a comment on this post, but the focus was slightly different and thus decided to write my own post on my weblog. I direct you there only for that reason.
Please excuse the self link, I hope it’s not out of line.
pornography: the explicit description or exhibition of sexual activity in literature, films, etc., intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings [Cons. Ox. Dict., 1992, page 927]