emoticon
Sign in to savethumb|class=skin-invert-image|upright=0.8|An emoticon portraying a smiling face thumb|class=skin-invert-image|upright=0.8|Examples of kaomoji smileys
AI overview
An emoticon is a simple combination of keyboard characters, like :) or :(, that represents a facial expression or emotion in written communication. It matters because it helps convey tone and feeling in text-based messages where facial expressions and voice aren't available, making online communication clearer and more personal.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
21 sectionsContents
- History
- ASCII art and faces (pre-1981)
- ASCII emoticons - First generation (1982–mid-1990s)
- Portrait emoticons - Second generation (1990s–present)
- Styles
- Western
- Kaomoji (Japan ASCII movement)
- 2channel
- Korean
- Chinese ideographic
- Posture emoticons
- Orz
- o7
- Multimedia variations
- Intellectual property rights
- Unicode
- See also
- Explanatory notes
- References
- Further reading
- External links
thumb|class=skin-invert-image|upright=0.8|An emoticon portraying a smiling face thumb|class=skin-invert-image|upright=0.8|Examples of kaomoji smileys
An emoticon (, , rarely , ), portmanteau of emotion and icon, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers and letters—to express a person's feelings, mood or reaction, without needing to describe it in detail.