A “smiley” is a symbolic representation of a smiling human face, commonly used in digital communications to convey an emotion or sentiment. Smileys are a form of emoticon – a pictorial representation of a facial expression that is used to convey emotion in text. The classic smiley face 🙂 conveys happiness, joy, amusement, or excitement.
Origin and History of Smileys
The first known instance of a smiley face in text is credited to American graphic artist Harvey Ball, who created the iconic yellow smiley face design in 1963. Ball’s design was used on buttons and posters by the State Mutual Life Assurance Company as part of a morale-boosting campaign among employees.
The use of emoticon style smiley faces in digital writing emerged in the 1980s as the rise of email, message boards, and early chat rooms coincided with the growing accessibility of computer keyboards. These digital communications lacked the nonverbal cues like facial expressions and tone of voice that are present in face-to-face interactions. Using punctuation marks and letters to create smiley faces and other emoticons helped convey the writer’s mood and meaning.
| Year | Smiley Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1963 | Harvey Ball creates the yellow smiley face design |
| 1982 | Scott Fahlman proposes using 🙂 and 🙁 to convey emotion in digital messages on message boards at Carnegie Mellon |
| 1997 | The first emoji are created by Japanese designer Shigetaka Kurita for use in mobile phone messaging |
Computer scientist Scott Fahlman is credited with proposing the use of 🙂 and 🙁 to indicate emotional meaning in digital messages on online message boards at Carnegie Mellon University in 1982. This is believed to be the earliest documented use of text-based emoticons. As digital communications continued growing through the 1990s, variations on the smiley emoticon emerged, including the wink 😉 and variations indicating laughter like 😀 or xD.
Types of Smileys
There are many different styles and types of smiley faces used in digital communications:
– **Classic smiley** – 🙂 – The simple smiley face made with a colon, dash, and close parenthesis. Conveys basic happiness.
– **Winky smiley** – 😉 – Adds a wink for humor, sarcasm, joking, or flirtation.
– **Laughing smiley** – 😀 or xD – A bigger smile with teeth showing, indicates laughing or amusement.
– **Sad smiley** – 🙁 – A frown instead of a smile conveys disappointment, sadness, or concern.
– **Other emotional smileys** – There are smileys indicating surprise :-o, confusion :-/, crying :'(, anger >:(, and more.
– **Unicode emoji smileys** – With the introduction of emoji, smiley images like ???? and ???? became available.
– **ASCII art smileys** – Some users create elaborate smileys out of keyboard characters, like @}-,-‘-,–
– **Kaomoji** – Made up of Japanese characters, kaomoji like (^_^) convey emotion in text.
– **Gif smileys** – Animated gifs of smiling faces that sometimes include movement.
Usage and Meaning of Smileys
Smileys and emoticons are used in digital communications like texts, emails, chat messages, discussion forums, and comments to:
– Convey the writer’s current mood or emotion
– Indicate tone to avoid miscommunication
– Soften criticism or bad news
– Convey humor or sarcasm
– Lighten the mood of a message
– Strengthen positive sentiments
– Develop rapport in conversation
– Flirt or express affection
Specific types of smileys convey slightly different meanings:
– 🙂 – Happy, cheerful, joking, amused
– 😉 – Playful, flirtatious, sarcastic
– 😀 – Very happy, laughing, enthusiastic
– 🙁 – Sad, concerned, disappointed
– :'( – Crying, very upset or hurt
– >:( – Angry
| Smiley | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 🙂 | Slightly happy |
| 😉 | Playful |
| 😀 | Very happy |
| 😕 | Confused |
| 😡 | Angry |
People may interpret the exact sentiment of a particular smiley differently based on context. But overall, smileys help writers express emotion and tone in text-based communication.
Smileys vs. Emojis
While the terms emoji and emoticon are sometimes used interchangeably, there are some distinctions between the two:
– **Emoticon** – Made up of punctuation and letters from the keyboard. Ex: 🙂
– **Emoji** – Small digital images or icons that represent facial expressions, objects, etc. Ex: 🙂
Both emoticons and emojis are used to convey emotion and meaning in digital communication and can include smiling, sad, angry faces, etc. But there are a few key differences:
| Smileys | Emojis |
|---|---|
| Emoticons made up of keyboard characters | Small digital images and icons |
| Limited range of expressions | Large set of emotions, objects, symbols |
| Used in text-based communication | Integrated into texts, apps, operating systems |
While emoticons have been around since the 1980s, emojis were introduced in the late 1990s in Japan and became integrated into global digital communication in the late 2000s. Both are still widely used today to convey emotion, emphasis, and meaning in digital messages through the use of smiling, sad, and other expressive faces.
Popularity and Impact of Smileys
The smiley face is considered one of the most recognizable symbols across cultures. Smileys and emojis are immensely popular for adding emotional nuance and fun to digital communications. Some key facts about their usage and impact:
– Over 700 million emojis are used on Facebook daily
– 92% of online populations use emojis
– The smiley face 🙂 and face with tears of joy 😂 are the most popular emojis
– Viewing emojis activates similar brain regions as when viewing real human faces
– Smileys and emojis can help form connections and increase intimacy in digital communication
– The emoji was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013
– Using smileys and emojis too often may seem unprofessional in some contexts
Overall, smileys and emojis have transformed digital communication by providing convenient shortcuts for expressing emotion. Their popularity endures decades after the first typed smiley appeared, a testament to the human need for emotional connection even in text-based interactions.
Conclusion
The smiley face remains one of the most ubiquitous symbols of happiness, positivity, and goodwill. From its origins in graphic design in the 1960s to theinsertion of emojis into digital communication, smileys provide convenient visual shorthand for conveying joy, amusement, and other sentiments. With widespread use across cultures today, smileys play an important role in adding emotional nuance and fun to digital interactions. Though details of style and meaning vary, the classic smiley endures as a universal expression of cheerfulness and good humor.
