For example, if you were joking with someone and send a text message of "Idiot!" the person receiving your message may think you are making a rude comment to them. If you send the same message with a "happy smiley" : ) following, the person would then understand you were "smiling" - or joking when you said that, and not misinterpret your intent. To create a smiley you use your standard keyboard characters and punctuation marks. When viewing text smilies they are all sideways. Smilies are often used in online chat rooms, game rooms, instant messaging, and in e-mail.

A smiley or happy face is a stylized representation of a smiling human face, commonly represented as a yellow (many other colors are also used) circle (or sphere) with two black dots representing eyes and a black half circle representing the mouth. The Smiley name and logo is registered and used in over 100 countries for 25 classes of goods and services. Loufrani had created the icon in 1971 to highlight good news in newspaper articles.

The World of Smileys

Smileys have been with us since its birth on September 19, 1982. But yet during, that time, it was not as popular as it is today. Perhaps, this is because it was not yet as interactive, as emotive and as expressive as it is today. In the beginning, the only smiley face looked like this :-). It is a simple combination of punctuation marks. It only symbolizes a simple smile. But now, it has evolved into different forms expressing diverse emotions. And lately, it can perform different actions in their virtual forms. Yes, it has metamorphosed into diverse forms and can perform more complex actions.

From its humble origin, it has transfigured into yellow faces expressing life-like emotions. It includes the smiling faces, the sad one, the angry one, the grinning one, the hypnotized, and the angry smiley. Also, aside from their being able to perform the basic human emotions, they can also mimic particular human actions like yawning, sleeping, snoring, among others. It can perform just the simple actions in an immobile manner. Yet, they are becoming popular among message senders.

Most often, these kinds of yellow smiley faces (smileys) are used in electronic mail and in instant messengers like in Yahoo or MSN. The new breed of smileys can interact with the other smileys. They were born from their parent smileys. They meet other smileys, they hang around, they dance, they hug, they play, and they work. They, too, fall in love and marry. And of course, they perform human-like rites and ceremonies like weddings. These virtual smiley buddies are the new breed of smileys. They are the newest virtual buddies you can have on your desktop.

History of Smiley

The very first yellow Smiley Face was created by Harvey Ball in 1963. He was hired by an insurance company to design a face to be used on buttons and cards in order to raise employee morale. It is noted that it took him 10 minutes to create the design. The Smiley gained huge popularity in the following years, becoming an international icon by the 1970's and securing a place in pop culture for the coming decades.

The growth of the Internet and the development of modern computer image formats allowed the Smiley to move online, cementing a place in Internet culture. Hundreds of thousands of graphical smileys have been created for Internet use, many of them animated. While the original smiley was all about happiness and creating a smile, all sorts of smileys are in use today. Even though the Smiley came to life some two decades before the Emoticon, there is no evidence that the creation of the first text emoticons were influenced by the Smiley.

Smileys as Substitute for Body Language

Humans and animals alike use body language in communicating. Both use body language to serve different functions. In the Animal kingdom, animals use body language to communicate. Bees, for example, use dance in patterns to indicate a bountiful source of honey. Soon, other bees follow. A cat can arch its back when threatened to signal that it’s ready to strike you with its claws. A dog sets its tail between its legs to indicate fright. A stickle-back fish swims up and down the stream to show contempt to its rival during courtship. Humans, too, use body language to serve different functions. It is very effective in all communications.

During the ancient times, ancient humans used non-verbal language to communicate with their fellow humans. It served them very well in their day to day life. An example of which is when the primitive men hunt for food. When hunting for wild animals like deer, or boar, a group of primitive men used body language. This conveyed their messages to their kin without using a single sound which may scare away the animal. Thus, they could effectively capture their prey.

Facial expressions, for example, reveal a lot more than what the person says. Expressions and gestures are honest admissions of what the person feels. Words may conceal meanings, but body language can't. When someone says, I'm happy, yet you can see that his expressions say otherwise, you will have to doubt the words. Most often, you can read more the person's feeling through his expression and body language.
Communicating in the Cyberworld is not as simple as in a face to face encounter. In the cyberworld, you cannot see the person talking and so you cannot read his/her body language. There, you use emails or instant messengers like in Yahoo or MSN, to communicate with the other person. That's why it is a lot more difficult to read through the meanings of what the other person is saying. Thus, it is very fortunate that emotive icons or smileys were invented.

Luckily, smileys can substitute our body language. They can be found as pop ups in menus in emails or Messengers. They allow the sender to communicate body language to the other person even if you cannot see him/her and vice versa. Therefore, you may be able to read through the other person, even if you cannot see him/her. Smileys vary in functions because each one performs a unique expression. Static smileys express the basic human emotions like affection, anger, sadness, joy, among others. They also express simple actions like hugging, waving of a hand, and kissing. They are useful in this sense. They can substitute our body language so as to communicate ourselves better and more effectively.

Smiley: which is used by various users

  • Simple Smile is usually written like this, :) or (: or :] or [: or =) or (= or :-) or (-: It can also be done by using ALT + (keypad) 1, getting ?. Or also the same thing only using: 2 getting.

  • Confused Smiley is usually written like this, :S or S: or :/ or :\ or /: or o_O or O_O or o.O or O.O It is also known as "a dolleke", see famous person.

  • Simple Frown is usually written like this, :( or ): or :[ or ]: or :'( or )': or :-( or )-:

  • Shocked Smiley is usually written like this, :O or O: or :o or o: or :-O (with nose) or D: It can also be done by using ALT + (keypad) 0246, getting ö.

  • Misc-tpvgames.gif Smiley with Tongue sticking out is usually written like this, :P or q: or :p If you use ASCII keys then, :Þ, is also possible. Press ALT + (keypad) 0222 for "Þ".

  • Smiley with big grin is usually written like this, :D or :]] or [[:

Tips & Warnings

  • Letters and standard text symbols can be used to create more than faces. For example, the @ symbol is commonly combined with hyphens and a curved bracket to create a "rose" @-}--

  • Make sure your smiley is understandable. People often get carried away with various smiley modifiers with disastrous results. For example, anger, surprise and a round nose >:oo don't mix very well.

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