[quote]... Simple emoticons have been around for a while but it’s the rise of smartphones that have really brought them into the mainstream. They’re used everywhere, from text messages to Instagram hashtags.[/quote]
What? " ... but it’s the rise of smartphones that have really brought them into the mainstream."
Nonesense, LOL. The PC's, laptops and such of the very beginning of the Internet made them popular; if you ever had a part in Yahoo Chat and Yahoo IM then you would know that Yahoo itself made the Smiley stand out. They started out as smiley's, but as they became .giff mages they became known as emoticons. Now we have emojis, but emojis are no different to either a smiley or a emotican.
(Smiley's were around in the days of IRC(Internet Relay Chat) which was well before Yahoo. I used Yahoo IM as an example to show that I was using what was basic smiley's way back then; Yahoo smiley's soon became animated 'Giffs which became known as emoticons and can still be found online . ... Anyway)
Wiki: [b]Emoticon: Not to be confused with Emoji.[/b]
[quote]An emoticon is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers, and letters—to express a person's feelings or mood, or as a time-saving method. The first ASCII [i]emoticons[/i], : - ) and : - ( [i]were written by Scott Fahlman in 1982, but emoticons actually originated on the PLATO IV computer system in [b]1972.[/b][/i] [/quote]
[b]Emoji:[/b] Singular emoji, plural emoji or emojis are ideograms and smileys used in electronic messages and web pages. They are much like emoticons, but emoji are actual pictures instead of typographics. Originally meaning pictograph, the word emoji comes from Japanese "picture". [i]The resemblance to the English words emotion and emoticon is purely coincidental.[/i]
In short? The concept of Smileys where first brought into light in 1972 (Actually, earlier than then but I don't want to go any deeper) Emoji comes into it's own in 1999. Smiley's where developed and went on to become animated visual .gifs. But in any case, the smiley and animated .giff smileys have been around a long, time and before the emoji.
droid emoji's are kinda lame on some phones. Especially if you send iPhone emojis to a droid. A lot of them don't work. Or don't look same. Therefore, the old school ways of smile at someone with a parentheses can be "better". What if we lost ALL computers, and all data (smart) phones tonight. No more pc's, laptops, droid, iPhones. Basic PHONES only?
@DDonde yeah. like the yellow ones are sort of fake. The punctuation you type (even though only colon and parentheses) a texter might mean more. Or so it appears.
