Way back in 1994, when the Internet was still a geek thing, it seems that smileys were a lot more common in e-mail, USENET, and message boards. But today most Internet users seem to avoid them, teenage girls exempted. My guess is that this is because there isn’t a counterpart to smileys in normal written communication.
The problem is, traditional written communication was a lot more formal than message boards and e-mail; they usually weren’t carried out in conversational tones. So you didn’t have to figure out how to express sarcasm without the receiver taking it the wrong way. That’s the justification most netiquette guides give for smileys: they express tones that are otherwise difficult to express in ASCII text.
To illustrate my point, compare these two statements:
- Go to hell, you bastard.
- Go to hell, you bastard
Which one seems friendlier?
I’ll have to say, however, that good writers will resort to smileys less often to be understood. I’ll also say that smiley abuse–overusing it or using it when it’s unnecessary based on the standards above–irritates me too.
o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o
:eek:
Scott with them 