The Language of the Emoticon
One thing that I tend to do almost obsessively is analyze language. Or, in some cases, “language”. Example: I have studied at least three dialects of l33t sp34k. I think that is the only example needed.
A recent brief exchange on Twitter has refocused my thoughts on the fine art of emoticon usage on the internet and, more specifically, how vastly different it is to those who rarely use them. Each brief combination of characters can indicate much about the speaker (it makes more sense to say speaker than writer, as it’s more conversational than literary). A single emoticon can say as little as “I am amused” and as much as “I find this a sad thing, and I am a person who frequently writes on message boards and/or in IM software and dislike the automatic frown emoticon.”
First, we’ll take a look at what the emoticons say about the speaker’s experience in internet communication. The simplest and strongest indicator of the speaker’s frequency of emoticon usage is the usage, or lack thereof, of a single character: the hyphen. People who infrequently use emoticons will generally only use two faces:
:-) and :-(
An unfortunate difficulty thrown into the generalization is that, if I recall correctly, at least one IM client (AIM?) uses that as the default smiley. So it may also just mean that they have limited internet chatting experience. It could also mean both.
* I make the assumption that someone who uses AIM has limited internet chatting experience because AIM is basically a mainstream beginner chat. I may address this in another post.
Sometimes, the dash-nose users will also use:
;-)
This indicates that they are fairly comfortable with using emoticons, but have either not been using them for particularly long or only in a very specific group of people. The reason is that any excessive amount of internet chatting will eventually degrade a person’s desire to use extra and clearly unnecessary characters, unless everyone else they chat with uses the same faces. After some time using emoticons, a person will invariably begin to use these instead:
:) and :( and ;)
Again, you can see the same three basic expressions, but now they are much shorter.
Someone who uses emoticons extensively, however, quickly finds that three faces is simply not enough. They will then pick up others, either from forum smiley codes or from the other people that they chat with. The two most common first additions are:
;( and :D and ;D and :o
Once you reach that point, you’ve been around long enough to start seeing the myriad of variations on the basics and will start using them. So, anything other than those listed so far indicates that you have significant experience in using and reading emoticons.
One particular and “special” type of emoticons belongs to what I can only term an internet subculture. Namely, the anime and manga fans. NOTE: At this point I should point out that I am only addressing the usage of emoticons amongst native English speakers, primarily from the US and areas of Europe. There is a tendency for anime/manga fans to pick up Japanese styles of emotes to better represent some of the specific anime-esque expressions that they may wish to use in conversation. The single most common is:
^_^
Even people who have barely touched the surface of anime and the anime community frequently use that. Also, it tends to be overused by those trying to be more japanese or “cute” (or “cute japanese”), so mixing it with any basic Japanese instantly labels you as… well, let’s just say it is not a positive stereotype. If you don’t want to be viewed at a similar level to, say, pond scum, avoid saying things like “ohayo~ it’s a nice day, ne? ^_^”
Some emotes that you come across as you venture deeper into the subculture are:
o_o and o_O Twitter users will recognize that one and x_x and >_<
Some people may replace the underlines with a - or a . The underline or dash are commonly seen as a mouth, while the dot is more frequently seen as a nose. As you may notice, these anime emoticons are not rotated 90 degrees, as Western emoticons generally are. Sometimes the expressions are translated to Western-style, such as the most common example:
xD
Once you reach the furthest point of either category that I've displayed, you are well and truly sunk in the world of emoticon usage. Anything beyond that starts venturing into group- or even individual-specific types.
Now, we delve a bit into the usage for meanings. The first thing that comes to mind is those who rarely use emoticons - namely, the :-) and :-( users. They are the most difficult to understand and interpret, simply because there is such a large range of potential meaning for a mere two symbols. The smile can mean the speaker is happy, or sarcastic, or joking, or amused, or attampting to console another, or trying to preserve a positive image. The frown can mean they are depressed, or angry, or disappointed, or commisserating. Both of those are only samples of what could be meant. If the sentence that the emoticon is tied to doesn't give enough information, there is very little actual communication done through the smiley as there are simply too many possibilities.
The next step, adding the wink, adds a whole new dimension to it and helps the understanding enormously. The winking smiley generally denotes the speaker's jocularity. The smile takes the stance of general positive feelings, while jokes, sarcasm, friendly jibes, and (usually) flirting are encompassed by the wink. The major benefit of this step upward is that it makes it vastly easier to tell when someone is joking or serious. If one says, for example,
"did you have fun last night? :-)"
or
"did you have fun last night? ;-)"
you can clearly see the difference in meaning. The first is just a pleasant inquiry into your previous night's activities. The latter, however, implies either teasing or a shared knowledge of something that occurred (in this particular example, probably something which my prudish sensibilities prevent me putting into text ;) ). You may notice my usage of ;) right there. This indicates that I am at the least comfortable with using smileys, use them fairly frequently, and am poking fun at myself.
As one travels deeper into emoticon usage, however, the addition of more and more emoticons causes each one’s meaning to be increasingly specific. If one only uses :) and :( and ;), you have only three representations for the entire realm of emotional tones. :) is general positives, :( is general negatives, and ;) is humorous or teasing in some way. We can step forward a few levels, however, and arrive here:
:) mild good feeling
;) mild teasing or joking
:D happiness
;D wink-wink nudge-nudge kind of a thing
:( sadness/unhappiness
>:( irritation
>:O anger
:o mild surprise
:O surprise
>:) evil grin
One who uses the latter set of emoticons is much more likely to attribute a specific meaning to someone who merely says :-) of “mild good feeling”, while the actual speaker may be intending to indicate a sense of jest or teasing. As a result, it is the responsibility of the more experienced emoticon users to understand the varying levels of usage and accommodate the rest.
A Brief Addendum
I mentioned at a point somewhere in the beginning about being able to tell if someone was a frequent forum/IM client user who didn’t like image emoticons, but realized that I failed to mention them at all after that. To put it simply, it’s a matter of direction. People who write their emoticons backwards:
(: (; ): o:
most of the time do so in order to bypass the forum or IM emoticon recognition software. A very small subset of that already small group, however, do so simply to be contrary, so while it is a compelling indicator it is not a conclusive one.
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