inspired by this hijack in this thread, what, if not smilies, emoticons, or internet shorthand, is the best why to convey tone and facial expressions in a typed message?
Something said face to face, with the intended meaning backed up with body language and vocal intonations can be completely misinterpreted when merely seen in print.
So what’s wrong with using smilies, you bleeding heart liberal pinko commie swines? :D:D:D
Couple things. I’d like to point out, first, that the linked post was not the hijack; or, at least, it was continuing a hijack. This post began the hijack; Otto felt the need to call attention to my lame joke, rather than let it lie there, or deal with it in non-hijacky manner. And I, of course, was guilty of continuing the hijack by lamely defending my lame joke. (Having just recently returned here, I decided it was better to err on the side of clarification, rather than letting a wrong impression stand.) Sorry for the hijack. (This one, too.)
Second, I never said there was anything wrong with smilies; just that I don’t use them. I’m not the only one–others have said the same thing here.
As I said in that thread, you don’t need smileys when you’re reading a newspaper or a book. Your standard for internet discussion may be face-to-face speech; my standard is written communication.
Personally, I feel that dependence on smileys is lazy: a disinclination to look for clues in the language of the writing for the tone. Or, rather, it’s usually the writer’s fault when a funny comes off as unfunny. But the overdependence on smileys has come to mean that some people seem to think that “no smiley” equals “therefore not possibly meant as a joke”; as some kind of proof that the writer wasn’t kidding. This makes smileys mandatory, which is preposterous.
Now, I’m not as good a writer as I wish I were, so I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes the funnies I make are not all that funny. But to disqualify them out of the box because of some technicality that I didn’t include a smiley is really totally unacceptable to me.
Frankly, if you require smileys in a post before you can decide if it’s funny or not, you need to step away from the computer for a while. Read some David Sedaris or P.G. Wodehouse. THEN come and tell me that it’s not funny unless it’s peppered with smileys.
using correct capitalization and
not writing your posts
in the same manner that
you would a poem.
You can’t.
This world is mostly a fantasy world.
You just take everything you read with a grain of salt. Sometimes two grains.
Lonesome.
From the other thread:
I don’t think your newspaper and book examples are valid since you usually already know the tone of the article or book before you even read it, by the author, the title, the headline, the subject matter, etc.
I didn’t intend my post to be a hijack. I have little patience with the use of the word “gay” as a synonym for bad or stupid or uncool or whatever. That was my intention in posting, to point out that using the word “gay” in that fashion is IMHO disrespectful to gay people (even if it’s used by a gay person; I’m not a big believer in passes on offense for in-group members). I used the phrase “fat little fingers” not as an attempt to insult fat people but as a comment on on clumsy typing. The “f word” was seized upon by someone with whom I’ve had a confrontation previously on the fat issue, for reasons best known to him.
Had you used a smiley, I would likely have had the same reaction. I tend not to excuse disrespect just on the basis of its being accompanied by a smiley.
Granted; my point was that my post, while certainly of debatable propriety, was at least on topic. I’m not saying I don’t understand why you’d want to call me out; I’m just saying it was the callout that started the hijack.
No judgment was implied; I’ve hijacked for similar reasons. But technically, it’s more in keeping with Board rules to notify a mod or start a pit thread.
In any case, I’ve acknowledged that my tone was not evident to many people. IRL, I may tell a friend, with a twinkle in my eye, that his shirt is kinda gay. Coming from a gay person, that becomes a joke about the use of the word “gay.” IRL, that is. (It’s kinda like saying “that’s retarded,” because I also happen to be retarded. Well, I have a shirt that makes me look retarded.)
There’s no question that my usage was–let’s put a shiny spin on it–mischievous. Here, people who know me got it; people who don’t, didn’t. Probly shouldna tempted fate.
It’s the responsibility of the writer to get his tone across.
It’s ironic, ain’t it, that a thread dealing with internet etiquette is hijacked. (Well, I find it slightly amusing.)
At any rate, lissener and Otto, please continue your discussion in another thread; let this one be about the OP’s question.
Back to the OP, and only the OP …
We did this about a year ago: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=259914. Naturally, opinions were all over the map.
In MY opinion, the central challenge we collectively face is that as an author you can’t know your audience and as an audence you can’t know your author. At one time, when the SDMB had a couple hundred members you could get to know that, say Thisguy was a kidder, while Thatguy was always serious and a pompous ass. Nowadays, it’s very likely that most readers have no clue about the author of any post. So the author needs to take that into consideration.
As a reader, I cannot asssume any author uses smilies the way I might. So smilies lose most of their meaning. Or said another way, they mean something, but as a reader I’m not sure exactly what, and their absense means absolutely nothing to me.
As an author, I cannot assume an reader interprets smilies or their absence the way I do.
In a away, they’re like regional slang. if I call somebody a “bogger”, and that person has no idea what a"bogger" is, have I communicated my menaing to them? Probably not. Worse if in my coountry a “bogger” is a fine freind and in your country a “bogger” is a scoundrel.
The strict meaning of any smilie, much less the nuances of tone of them, are very far from universally agreed on the SDMB, much less the internet at large. That makes them an impediment to clear communication.
Personally, I wish people used smilies more often. I am not very easily offended, so I can’t recall ever getting into a fight online with someone because of a lack of smiley, but sometimes I have had people say things in a joking way and then have to explain they meant it as a joke when I took it seriously.
See, the thing is, when I’m not sure if a comment is meant as a joke, I err on the side of assuming the person meant it seriously since I wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings by laughing if they’re actually trying to be serious.
Sometimes, even when someone says something totally absurd, you can’t be sure if they intended it to sound humorous, because the Internet is certainly a cornucopia of bizarre characters!
I’m lissener-lite on smileys. I tend to think that a serious, substantive post does not call for them. If I’m conveying information or trying to marshal a reasoned argument, they’re out of place.
On the other hand, I love to pick up on irony, add the odd witticism (some very odd), and generally enjoy the wry in life. And in such cases, the use of the smiley to signal, in the same way that a smile on my face or a twinkle in my eye would convey to you that I mean that humorously and ironically, and not insultingly and “straight”, is Internet-text-appropriate.
I don’t like smileys all that much, but I find I have to use them on the internet because I have an extremely dry sense of humour, and if you can’t see the twinkle in my eye, the humour can be hard to spot.
Maybe I should just have a sig that says, “Take things by this poster seriously at your own peril.”
I will sometimes use :eek: or a after a quote but before my reply here in MPSIMS. I’ll occaisionally put in a :wally if I wooshed some one (also in MPSIMS). I never use smileys in any other forum (except for a possible :mad: on the rare occasion that I venture into the Pit) as they seem to make any worthwile, serious, and well composed post into something childish and almost cartoonish.
Smileys have do their place. Mostly in this forum, and never for anything serious, IMO.