by Jamie Craig

Created on: January 28, 2011

Emoticons were invented by Scott Fahlman in the early 1980’s as a means for posters in an online community to tell the different between threads that contained jokes and ones which contained news or real life stories. They were allocated the smiley face and the sad face accordingly and since then the concept has caught on due to the fun nature of the images.

Emoticons are a prominent part of Windows Live Messenger, Skype and many other instant messaging clients. They have also become common place within text messaging as mobile phones have become capable of supporting the small graphics and sending them between different phones.

Using emoticons is a great way to add personality to a conversation and convey your points to friends more clearly on Facebook Chat. Besides the obvious “smileys” there a few less obvious treasures hidden in the cartoon underbelly of Facebook Chat and all of the different variations are contained herein. It should be noted that the emoticons will not appear until you press the “Enter” key or the “Send” button to deliver the message to your friend. Just because it doesn’t appear immediately after you’ve typed it doesn’t mean that you’ve made an error.

>>Basic Smileys<< 

These emoticons are great for breaking up your sentences or making your feelings clear during a conversation.

Smile - :)

Grin - :D

Wink - ;)

Very happy - ^_^

Sad Face - :(

Crying - :’(

Cross - >:(

Upset - >:O

Tongue - :P

Shock - :O

Glasses - 8-)

Sunglasses - 8-|

Squint - -_-

Unsure - :\

Confused - o.O

Devil Face - 3:)

Angel - O:)

Kiss - :*

Curly Lips - :3

>>Miscellaneous/Other<<

Frankly, some of these emoticons don’t have much of a purpose as it all, other than to impress your friends by you knowing that they exist. Some of the odder ones like “Chris Putnam” are sure to get a laugh from people that haven’t seen them before.

Heart - <3

Pacman - :v

Robot - :|]

Chris Putnam - :putnam:

Shark - (^^^)

Penguin - <(“)

Number 42 - :42:

Note 1: If you’re wondering who on Earth Chris Putnam is then you’re not alone! The answer to your question is that he is one of the engineers of Facebook and the image was created as an “in joke” by the developers of the social networking site.

Note 2: The heart emoticon also works elsewhere in Facebook, such as within messages and statuses.

Have fun using your new found emoticons!

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