:-)
and :-(
in a message on the bulletin board system (BBS) of Carnegie Mellon University in 1982.
In Western countries, emoticons are usually written at a right angle to the direction of the text. Users from Japan popularized a kind of emoticon called kaomoji, utilizing the larger character sets required for Japanese, that can be understood without tilting one's head to the left. This style arose on ASCII NET of Japan in 1986.
As History
Smiling faces in text & precursors (pre-1981)
Modern emoticons were not the first instances of or being used in text. In 1648, poet Robert Herrick wrote, ''"Tumble me down, and I will sit Upon my ruins, (smiling yet:)."'' Herrick's work predated any other recorded use of brackets as a smiling face by around 200 years. However, experts have since weighed whether the inclusion of the colon in the poem was deliberate and if it was meant to represent a smiling face. English professor Alan Jacobs argued that "punctuation, in general, was unsettled in the seventeenth century ... Herrick was unlikely to have consistent punctuational practices himself, and even if he did he couldn't expect either his printers or his readers to share them." Precursors to modern emoticons have existed since the 19th century. 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. New Zealand academics Joan Gajadhar and John Green comment that bothUse of :-) and :-( as communication (1982)
Carnegie Mellon computer scientist19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-) From: Scott E FahlmanOther suggestions on the forum included an asterisk and an ampersand , the former meant to represent a person doubled over in laughter, as well as aI 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 :-(
Later evolution
In modern times, emoticons have been around since 1990s and at present "Smiley" emoticons (colon, hyphen and bracket) have become integral to digital communications, and have inspired a variety of other emoticons, including the "winking" face using aStyles
Western
Usually, emoticons in Western style have the eyes on the left, followed by the nose and the mouth. The two-character version:)
which omits the nose is also very popular.
The most basic emoticons are relatively consistent in form, but each of them can be transformed by being rotated (making them tiny :(
equals sad and :((
equals very sad. Weeping can be written as :'(
. A blush can be expressed as :">
. Others include wink ;)
, a grin :D
, smug :->
, and can be used to denote a flirting or joking tone, or may be implying a second meaning in the sentence preceding it.Dresner & Herring (2010). ;P
, such as when <3
for a heart, and 3
for a broken heart. :O
is also sometimes used to depict shock. :/
is used to depict melancholy, disappointment, or disapproval. :,
is used to depict a neutral face.
A broad grin is sometimes shown with crinkled eyes to express further amusement; XD
and the addition of further "D" letters can suggest laughter or extreme amusement e.g. XDDDD
. The same is true for X3
but the three represents an animal's mouth. There are other variations including >:(
for anger, or >:D
for an evil grin, which can be, again, used in reverse, for an unhappy angry face, in the shape of D:<
. =K
for vampire teeth, :s
for grimace, and :P
tongue out, can be used to denote a flirting or joking tone, or may be implying a second meaning in the sentence preceding it.
As computers offer increasing built-in support for non-Western writing systems, it has become possible to use other glyphs to build emoticons. The '¯\_(ツ)_/¯
, uses the glyph =)
, 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 most circles it has become acceptable to omit the hyphen, whether a colon or an equal sign is used for the eyes, but in some areas of usage people still prefer the larger, more traditional emoticon :-)
or :^)
. One linguistic study has indicated that the use of a nose in an emoticon may be related to the user's age, with younger people less likely to use a nose. 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 or, in some cases, one type of character may look better in a certain font and therefore be preferred over another. It is also common for the user to replace the rounded brackets used for the mouth with other, similar brackets, such as ]
instead of )
.
Some variants are also more common in certain countries due to =)
may occur in =
and )
are placed right beside each other. However, the :)
variant is without a doubt the dominant one in Scandinavia, making the =)
version a rarity. Ö
and Ü
can be seen as an emoticon, as the upright version of :O
(meaning that one is surprised) and :D
(meaning that one is very happy) respectively.
Some emoticons may be read right to left instead, and in fact, can only be written using standard ASCII keyboard characters this way round; for example D:
which refers to being shocked or anxious, opposite to the large grin of :D
.
On the Russian-speaking Internet, the right parenthesis )
is used as a smiley. Multiple parentheses ))))
are used to express greater happiness, amusement or laughter. It is commonly placed at the end of a sentence, replacing the full stop. The colon is omitted due to being in a lesser-known position on the ЙЦУКЕН keyboard layout.
Japanese (''kaomoji'')
Users from Japan popularized a style of emoticons ( 顔文字, ''kaomoji'', lit. 'face characters') that can be understood without tilting one's head. This style arose on ASCII NET, an early Japanese online service, in the 1980s. They often include Japanese typography in addition to ASCII characters, and in contrast to Western-style emoticons, tend to emphasize the eyes, rather than the mouth. Wakabayashi Yasushi is credited with inventing the original ''kaomoji'' in 1986. Similar-looking emoticons were used on the(*_*)
. The asterisks indicate the eyes; the central character, commonly an (T_T)
. T_T
may also be used to mean "unimpressed". The emphasis on the eyes in this style is reflected in the common usage of emoticons that use only the eyes, e.g. ^^
. Looks of stress are represented by the likes of (x_x)
, while (-_-;)
is a generic emoticon for nervousness, the semicolon representing an anxiety-induced sweat drop (discussed further below). ///
can indicate embarrassment by symbolizing blushing, resembling the lines drawn on cheeks in manga. 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. (^^)
.
Parentheses are sometimes replaced with braces or
or _0/code>. Many times, the parentheses are left out completely, e.g. ^^
, >.<
, o_O
, O.O
, e_e
, or e.e
. 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 manga and anime
is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...
.
Microsoft IME 2000 (Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
) or later supports the input of emoticons like the above by enabling the Microsoft IME Spoken Language/Emotion Dictionary. In IME 2007, this support was moved to the Emoticons dictionary. Such dictionaries allow users to call up emoticons by typing words that represent them.
Communication software allowing the use of Shift JIS
Shift JIS (Shift Japanese Industrial Standards, also SJIS, MIME name Shift_JIS, known as PCK in Solaris contexts) is a character encoding for the Japanese language, originally developed by a Japanese company called ASCII Corporation in conjuncti ...
encoded characters rather than just ASCII allowed for the development of more kaomoji using the extended character set including hiragana
is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''.
It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...
, katakana, kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
, symbols, Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and Cyrillic alphabet
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = Gr ...
, such as
, (`Д´)
or (益)
.
Modern communication software generally utilizes Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
, which allows for the incorporation of characters from other languages and a variety of symbols into the kaomoji, as in (◕‿◕✿)
(❤ω❤)
(づ ◕‿◕ )づ
(▰˘◡˘▰)
.
Further variations can be produced using Unicode combining characters, as in ٩(͡๏̯͡๏)۶
or ᶘᵒᴥᵒᶅ
.
Combination of Japanese and Western styles
English-language anime
is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...
forums adopted those Japanese-style 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 English. They have since seen use in more mainstream venues, including online gaming, instant-messaging, and non-anime-related discussion forums. Emoticons such as <( ^.^ )>
, <(^_^<)
, <(o_o<)
, <( -'.'- )>
, <('.'-^)
, or (>';..;')>
which include the parentheses, mouth or nose, and arms (especially those represented by the inequality signs < or >) also are often referred to as "" in reference to their likeness to Nintendo's video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
character Kirby
Kirby may refer to:
Buildings
* Kirby Building, a skyscraper in Dallas, Texas, United States
* Kirby Hall, an Elizabethan country house near Corby, Northamptonshire, England
* Kirby House (disambiguation), various houses in England and the Unit ...
. The parentheses are sometimes dropped when used in the English language context, and the underscore of the mouth may be extended as an intensifier for the emoticon in question, e.g. ^_________^
for very happy. The emoticon uses the Eastern style, but incorporates a depiction of the Western "middle-finger flick-off" using a "t" as the arm, hand, and finger. Using a lateral click for the nose such as in is believed to originate from the Finnish image-based message board Ylilauta, and is called a "Lenny face". Another apparently Western invention is the use of emoticons like *,..,*
or `;..;´
to indicate vampires or other mythical beasts with fangs.
Exposure to both Western and Japanese style emoticons or kaomoji through blogs, instant messaging, and forums featuring a blend of Western and Japanese pop culture has given rise to many emoticons that have an upright viewing format. The parentheses are often dropped, and these emoticons typically only use alphanumeric characters and the most commonly used English punctuation marks. Emoticons such as -O-
, -3-
, -w-
, '_'
, ;_;
, T_T
, :>
, and .V.
are used to convey mixed emotions that are more difficult to convey with traditional emoticons. Characters are sometimes added to emoticons to convey an anime- or manga-styled sweat drop, for example ^_^'
, !>_, <@>_____<@>;;
, ;O;
, and *u*
. The equals sign can also be used for closed, anime-looking eyes, for example =0=
, =3=
, =w=
, =A=
, and =7=
. The uwu
face (and its variations UwU
and OwO
), is an emoticon of Japanese origin which denotes a cute expression or emotion felt by the user, but has more recently become associated with the furry fandom.
In Brazil, sometimes combining characters (accents) are added to emoticons to represent eyebrows, as in ò_ó
, ó_ò
, õ_o
, ù_u
, o_Ô
, or ( •̀ ᴗ •́ )
.
2channel
Users of the Japanese discussion board 2channel
, also known as 2ch, Channel 2, and sometimes retrospectively as 2ch.net, was an anonymous Japanese textboard founded in 1999 by Hiroyuki Nishimura. Described in 2007 as "Japan's most popular online community", the site had a level of influ ...
, in particular, have developed a wide variety of unique emoticons using characters from various scripts, such as Kannada
Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
, as in ಠ_ಠ
(for a look of disapproval, disbelief, or confusion). These were quickly picked up by 4chan
4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, cooking, weapons, television, ...
and spread to other Western sites soon after. Some have taken on a life of their own and become characters in their own right, like Monā.
Korean
In South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...
, emoticons use Korean Hangul
The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The le ...
letters, and the Western style is rarely used. The structures of Korean and Japanese emoticons are somewhat similar, but they have some differences. Korean style contains Korean jamo (letters) instead of other characters. There are countless number of emoticons that can be formed with such combinations of Korean jamo letters. Consonant jamos ㅅ
, ㅁ
or ㅂ
as the mouth/nose component and ㅇ
, ㅎ
or ㅍ
for the eyes. For example: ㅇㅅㅇ
, ㅇㅂㅇ
, ㅇㅁㅇ
and -ㅅ-
. Faces such as 'ㅅ'
, "ㅅ"
, 'ㅂ'
and 'ㅇ'
, using quotation marks "
and apostrophes '
are also commonly used combinations. Vowel jamos such as ㅜ,ㅠ depict a crying face. Example: ㅜㅜ
, ㅠㅠ
and 뉴뉴
(same function as T in western style). Sometimes ㅡ (not an em-dash "—" but a vowel jamo), a comma or an underscore is added, and the two character sets can be mixed together, as in ㅜ.ㅜ
, ㅠ.ㅜ
, ㅠ.ㅡ
, ㅜ_ㅠ
, ㅡ^ㅜ
and ㅜㅇㅡ
. Also, semicolons and carets are commonly used in Korean emoticons; semicolons mean sweating (embarrassed). If they are used with ㅡ or – they depict a bad feeling. Examples: -;/
, --^
, ㅡㅡ;;;
, -_-;;
and -_^
. However, ^^, ^오^
means smile (almost all people use this without distinction of sex or age). Others include: ~_~
, --a
, -6-
, +0+
.
Chinese ideographic
The character 囧 (U+56E7), which means "bright", may be combined with posture emoticon Orz, such as 囧rz. The character existed in Oracle bone script
Oracle bone script () is an ancient form of Chinese characters that were engraved on oracle bonesanimal bones or Turtle shell#Plastron, turtle plastrons used in pyromancy, pyromantic divination. Oracle bone script was used in the late 2nd millen ...
, but its use as emoticon was documented as early as January 20, 2005.
Other ideographic variants for 囧 include 崮 (king 囧), 莔 (queen 囧), 商 (囧 with hat), 囧興 (turtle), 卣 (Bomberman
is a video game franchise originally developed by Hudson Soft and currently owned by Konami. The original game, also known as ''Bakudan Otoko'' (''爆弾男''), was released in Japan in July 1983 and has since spawned multiple sequels and sp ...
).
The character 槑 (U+69D1), which sounds like the word for "plum" (梅 (U+FA44)), is used to represent double of 呆 (dull), or further magnitude of dullness. In Chinese, normally full characters (as opposed to the stylistic use of 槑) might be duplicated to express emphasis.
Posture emoticons
Orz
Orz (other forms include: ) is an emoticon representing a kneeling or bowing person (the Japanese version of which is called ''dogeza
is an element of traditional Japanese etiquette which involves kneeling directly on the ground and bowing to prostrate oneself while touching one's head to the floor.Leaman, Olive''Friendship East and West: philosophical perspectives''p. 74 It ...
'') 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
A stick figure, also known as a stickman, is a very simple drawing of a person or an animal, composed of a few lines, curves, and dots. On a stick figure, the head is most often represented by a circle, which can be either a solid color or som ...
can represent respect or ''kowtowing'', but commonly appears along a range of responses, including "frustration, despair, sarcasm, or grudging respect".
It was first used in late 2002 at the forum on Techside, a Japanese personal website. At the "Techside FAQ Forum" (TECHSIDE教えて君BBS(教えてBBS) ), a poster asked about a cable cover, typing to show a cable and its cover. Others commented that it looked like a kneeling person, and the symbol became popular. These comments were soon deleted as they were considered off-topic. By 2005, Orz spawned a subculture: blogs have been devoted to the emoticon, and URL shortening
URL shortening is a technique on the World Wide Web in which a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) may be made substantially shorter and still direct to the required page. This is achieved by using a redirect which links to the web page that has ...
services have been named after it. In Taiwan, Orz is associated with the phrase "nice guy
"Nice guy" is an informal term, commonly used with either a literal or a sarcastic meaning, for a man.
In the literal sense, the term describes a man who is agreeable, gentle, compassionate, sensitive and vulnerable. The term is used both pos ...
"that is, the concept of males being rejected for a date by females, with a phrase like "You are a nice guy."
Orz should not be confused with m(_ _)m, which means "Thank you" or an apology (つ ͡ꈍ ͜ʖ̫ ͡ꈍ ).
Multimedia variations
A portmanteau of ''emotion'' and ''sound
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' b ...
'', 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
Subtext is any content of a creative work, which is not announced explicitly (by characters or author), but is implicit, or becomes something understood by the audience. Subtext has been used historically to imply controversial subjects without ...
. Many instant messaging clients automatically trigger sound effects in response to specific emoticons.
Some services, such as MuzIcons, combine emoticons and music player in an Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich web applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Fla ...
-based widget.
In 2004, the Trillian chat application introduced a feature called "emotiblips", which allows Trillian users to stream files to their instant message recipients "as the voice and video equivalent of an emoticon".
In 2007, MTV and Paramount Home Entertainment
Paramount Home Entertainment (formerly Paramount Home Media Distribution, and originally Paramount Home Video) is the home video distribution arm of Paramount Pictures, a division of Paramount Global.
The division oversees PPC's home entertainme ...
promoted the "emoticlip" as a form of viral marketing
Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way tha ...
for the second season of the show ''The Hills''. The emoticlips were twelve short snippets of dialogue from the show, uploaded to YouTube, which the advertisers hoped would be distributed between web users as a way of expressing feelings in a similar manner to emoticons. The emoticlip concept is credited to the Bradley & Montgomery advertising firm, which hopes they would be widely adopted as "greeting cards that just happen to be selling something".
In 2008, an emotion-sequence animation tool, called FunIcons was created. The Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich web applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Fla ...
and Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
-based application allows users to create a short animation. Users can then email or save their own animations to use them on similar social utility applications.
During the first half of the 2010s, there have been different forms of small audiovisual pieces to be sent through instant messaging systems to express one's emotion. These videos lack an established name, and there are several ways to designate them: "emoticlips" (named above), "emotivideos" or more recently "emoticon videos". These are tiny videos that can be easily transferred from one mobile phone to another. Current video compression codecs such as H.264
Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distr ...
allow these pieces of video to be light in terms of file size and very portable. The popular computer and mobile app Skype
Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...
use these in a separate keyboard or by typing the code of the "emoticon videos" between parentheses.
Emoticons and intellectual property rights
In 2000, Despair, Inc. obtained a U.S. trademark
A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from othe ...
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 on technology news website Slashdot
''Slashdot'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''/.'') is a social news website that originally advertised itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories concerning science, technology, and politics that are submitted and eval ...
.
A number of patent application
A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for an invention described in the patent specification and a set of one or more claims stated in a formal document, including necessary official forms and re ...
s have been filed on inventions that assist in communicating with emoticons. A few of these have been issued as US patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
s. US 6987991, for example, discloses a method developed in 2001 to send emoticons over a cell phone using a drop-down menu. The stated advantage over the prior art
Prior art (also known as state of the art or background art) is a concept in patent law used to determine the patentability of an invention, in particular whether an invention meets the novelty and the inventive step or non-obviousness criteria ...
was that the user saved on the number of keystrokes though this may not address the obviousness criteria.
The emoticon :-)
was also filed in 2006 and registered in 2008 as a European Community Trademark
A European Union trade mark or EU trade mark (abbreviated EUTM; named ''Community Trade Mark'' (''CTM'') until 23 March 2016) is a trade mark which is pending registration or has been registered in the European Union as a whole (rather than on a na ...
(CTM). In Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled in 2012 that the emoticon cannot be trademarked, thus repealing a 2006 administrative decision trademarking the emoticons :-)
, =)
, =(
, :)
and :(
.
In 2005, a Russian court rejected a legal claim against Siemens by a man who claimed to hold a trademark on the ;-)
emoticon.
In 2008, Russian entrepreneur Oleg Teterin claimed to have been granted the trademark on the ;-)
emoticon. A license would not "cost that muchtens of thousands of dollars" for companies, but would be free of charge for individuals.
Unicode
A different, but related, use of the term "emoticon" is found in the Unicode Standard
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, whic ...
, referring to a subset of emoji which display facial expressions. The standard explains this usage with reference to existing systems, which provided functionality for substituting certain textual emoticons with images or emoji of the expressions in question.
Some smiley faces were present in Unicode since 1.1, including a white frowning
A frown (also known as a scowl) is a facial expression in which the eyebrows are brought together, and the forehead is wrinkled, usually indicating displeasure, sadness or worry, or less often confusion or concentration.
The appearance of a frow ...
face, a white smiling
A smile is a facial expression formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. Some smiles include a contraction of the muscles at the corner of the eyes, an action known as a Duchenne smile.
Among humans, a smile expresses ...
face, and a black smiling face. ("Black" refers to a glyph which is filled, "white" refers to a glyph which is unfilled).
The Emoticons block was introduced in Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
Standard version 6.0 (published in October 2010) and extended by 7.0. It covers Unicode range from U+1F600 to U+1F64F fully.
After that block had been filled, Unicode 8.0
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, whi ...
(2015), 9.0 (2016) and 10.0 (2017) added additional emoticons in the range from U+1F910 to U+1F9FF. Currently, U+1F90CU+1F90F, U+1F93F, U+1F94DU+1F94F, U+1F96CU+1F97F, U+1F998U+1F9CF (excluding U+1F9C0 which contains the 🧀 emoji) and U+1F9E7U+1F9FF do not contain any emoticons since Unicode 10.0.
For historic and compatibility reasons, some other heads, and figures, which mostly represent different aspects like genders, activities, and professions instead of emotions, are also found in Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs
Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs is a Unicode block containing meteorological and astronomical symbols, emoji characters largely for compatibility with Japanese telephone carriers' implementations of Shift JIS, and characters originally fro ...
(especially U+1F466U+1F487) and Transport and Map Symbols
Transport and Map Symbols is a Unicode block containing transportation and map icons, largely for compatibility with Japanese telephone carriers' emoji implementations of Shift JIS, and to encode characters in the Wingdings and Wingdings 2 char ...
. Body parts, mostly hands, are also encoded in the Dingbat
In typography, a dingbat (sometimes more formally known as a printer's ornament or printer's character) is an ornament, specifically, a glyph used in typesetting, often employed to create box frames, (similar to box-drawing characters) or as ...
and Miscellaneous Symbols
Miscellaneous Symbols is a Unicode block (U+2600–U+26FF) containing glyphs representing concepts from a variety of categories: astrological, astronomical, chess, dice, musical notation, political symbols, recycling, religious symbols, trigr ...
blocks.
See also
* ASCII art
* Emotion Markup Language
An Emotion Markup Language (EML or EmotionML) has first been defined by the W3C Emotion Incubator Group (EmoXG) as a general-purpose emotion annotation and representation language, which should be usable in a large variety of technological context ...
(EML)
* Emotions in virtual communication Emotions in virtual communication differ in a variety of ways from those in face-to-face interactions due to the characteristics of computer-mediated communication (CMC). CMC may lack many of the auditory and visual cues normally associated with th ...
* Henohenomoheji
''Henohenomoheji'' ( ja, へのへのもへじ ) or ''hehenonomoheji'' () is a face known to be drawn by Japanese schoolchildren using hiragana characters. It became a popular drawing during the Edo period.
The word breaks down into seven hir ...
* Hieroglyph
A hieroglyph ( Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatoni ...
* iConji
iConji is a free pictographic communication system based on an open, visual vocabulary of characters with built-in translations for most major languages.
In May 2010 iConji Messenger was released with support for Apple iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod) ...
* Internet slang
* Irony punctuation
Irony punctuation is any form of notation proposed or used to denote irony or sarcasm in text. Written English lacks a standard way to mark irony, and several forms of punctuation have been proposed. Among the oldest and most frequently atte ...
* Kaoani
* List of emoticons
* Martian language
* Pixel art
Pixel art () is a form of digital art drawn with graphical software where images are built using pixels as the only building block. It is widely associated with the low-resolution graphics from 8-bit and 16-bit era computers and arcade video g ...
* Smiley
A smiley, sometimes referred to as a smiley face, is a basic ideogram that represents a smiling face. Since the 1950s it has become part of popular culture worldwide, used either as a standalone ideogram, or as a form of communication, such a ...
* Tête à Toto
The tête à Toto is a French typographical design and children's game, well known to French schoolchildren.
It consists of the equation "0+0=0", written with the first two "0"s for eyes, the "+" for a nose, the "=" for a mouth, and the final "0" ...
* Text
Text may refer to:
Written word
* Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including:
**Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred
**Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...
* Typographic alignment
In typesetting and page layout, alignment or range is the setting of text flow or image placement relative to a page, column (measure), table cell, or tab (and often to an image above it or under it).
The type alignment setting is sometimes ref ...
* Typographic approximation
Explanatory notes
References
Further reading
*
* Bódi, Zoltán, and Veszelszki, Ágnes (2006). ''Emotikonok. Érzelemkifejezés az internetes kommunikációban'' (Emoticons: Expressing Emotions in the Internet Communication). Budapest: Magyar Szemiotikai Társaság.
* Dresner, Eli, and Herring, Susan C. (2010)
"Functions of the Non-verbal in CMC: Emoticons and Illocutionary Force"
(preprint copy). ''Communication Theory 20'': 249–268.
*
* Veszelszki, Ágnes (2012)
Connections of Image and Text in Digital and Handwritten Documents
In: Benedek, András, and Nyíri, Kristóf (eds.): ''The Iconic Turn in Education''. Series Visual Learning Vol. 2. Frankfurt am Main et al.: Peter Lang, pp. 97−110.
* Veszelszki, Ágnes (2015)
"Emoticons vs. Reaction-Gifs: Non-Verbal Communication on the Internet from the Aspects of Visuality, Verbality and Time"
In: Benedek, András − Nyíri, Kristóf (eds.): ''Beyond Words: Pictures, Parables, Paradoxes'' (series Visual Learning, vol. 5). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. 131−145.
* Wolf, Alecia (2000). "Emotional expression online: Gender differences in emoticon use". ''CyberPsychology & Behavior 3'': 827–833.
External links
*
{{Authority control
ASCII art
Computer-related introductions in 1982
Email
Internet forum terminology
Internet memes
Internet slang
Online chat
Pictograms