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Smiley faces, they used to be just text, but now we see more and more cartoon smiley faces. These representations of the now "old school" textual smiley faces come in a very wide variety of flavors and characters. All the way from the classic, yellow little button face smiling away with two black dots as eyes, to the now increasingly popular animated versions that appeal to the "web 2.0" crowd. |
Amazingly enough, smiley faces are now even coming in audible formats (meaning that instead of just looking cute, they'll move and make sounds!). This author, personally, prefers his smilies to be quiet, but let's take a look at the evolution of these classic internet icons.
The smiley face as we know it now - you know, this guy: ":-)" - has been in existence since the 1970s and it's inception is generally credited to Scott Fahlman, a computer scientist who wanted to be able to distinguish between funny and serious posts on a message board. The concept caught on in the same fashion as what we now refer to as the birth of an internet meme, a term popularized by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins - of whom the author is a big fan - meaning that more and more people started to use smiley faces.
Since the birth of the textual smiley face, the emoticon has taken many turns and twists over the years. Odd new versions in text, some complex, some simple, some funny have now started heading in the direction of animated versions of their former ASCII selves. Bright, glossy smiley faces with brilliantly detailed features now may grace your instant messenger software or emails you receive from your family and friends, possibly even your boss. Interestingly enough, the smiley face has become so common that in some professional circles they are accepted in day-to-day communications, within reason and context, of course.
Most instant messenger software comes prepackaged with a large amount of cartoon or animated smiley faces and will even automatically "convert" the text smilies you type into the communication bar with their newer cartoon counterparts. However, as with all things, it can get boring to see the same faces over and over, so thankfully it's very easy to get new packages of smiley faces and integrate them into your instant messenger software. It just might change the way you feel about chatting!
If you're still using the same old text colon-dash-parenthesis smiley face, you might want to update yourself and get into the current times! It's time to download a software package of some new, brightly colored and expressive cartoon smiley faces.
