Emoticon

This :-) is an emoticon.

The “smiling face with smiling eyes” is a standard in approval and appreciation. It expresses genuine happiness and warm, positive feelings. It is an emoji form of the ^^ emoticon.

Do you know what the difference between an emoticon and an emoji is?

This is the first time I've seen this emoticon in a while.

A remark intended humorously is often indicated by the letter G in parentheses, for "grin," or by a sideways happy face built from punctuation marks. Such symbols are known as emoticons.

In a 4 by 2 experimental procedure, :) ;) :( or no emoticon were inserted alternately in simulated e-mail message mock-ups

The range of interpretations was surprising broad, for instance the emoticon (-.-) had 16 possible interpretations

When receiving a message like “We need to talk :(,” the emoticon implies that the conversation will involve bad or sad news. But a message like “I’m going to kill you :)” is most likely sarcastic. With text communication, in particular, it can be incredibly hard to understand intentionality — especially when there’s humor and sarcasm involved. Because of this, emoji and emoticons can be extremely useful to attach an element of feeling and emotion to the message.

In addition to placing emoticons by clicking icons in the pop-up panel shown in Figure 4-2, you can enter the text representation in your text chat window. For example, to show the image of the emoticon with sunglasses, you enter (cool).