Understanding Smiley Icons and How to Use Them

The Internet is continuously evolving. It has been incorporating all current technology into its domain and has thus stood the test of time and storm. From video conferencing to class sessions delivered online, it has touched almost every aspect of life. But none has been as popular as Instant Messaging, which gave birth to smiley icons, a product of man’s quest to make cyberspace as social as possible.

Smiley icons are sequences of characters and symbols which represent different facial expressions, human feelings and sometimes, even social gestures. They were first developed in an attempt to make the web as humanly social as possible. Later on, however, they were extended to represent all forms of humor, nationalism, celebrities and all kinds of things. And yes, it is still developing.

So, what are the most popular classes of smiley icons?

Emotions: Smileys are used to represent most human emotions. The most popular ones are smile, frown, wink, laugh, mock, tongue sticking out, etc. These ones are very frequently used in chat rooms and online forums.

Cartoons: From smiley icons of fat guys scratching their pot bellies to other weird ones, there are a whole bunch of cartoon smileys that may have quite a few that will appeal to you and your lifestyle. All you have to do to get these smileys is tosearch them online and follow the instructions to download them.

Ideologies: Since people of all faiths, creeds and nationalities partake in the discussions at the forums and chat rooms, some smart guys came up with smiley icon that represented religious symbols, socio-political identities like national flags and others. If you have been wondering how that guy that you always meet in the chat room, gets to display a waving US flag, now you know.

Celebrities: Celebrities are more like gods nowadays. There are people who have made a fortune just writing about them. So, it shouldn’t surprise you that we now have some emoticons that represent them. From politicians like former president Jimmy Carter :(=) to celebrities and TV characters like Pamela Anderson &:-)3 , Alladin @:-) , a whole lot of classes of icons that represent most things we care about are continuously evolving.

If you want to master the arts of the internet world, you have to learns its ways and be a part of its cyber culture, which includes understanding and rightly using smiley icons to deliver warmth to your online posts and break the ice created by the screen.