The survey is closed, the results are in, and my conclusions confirm my hypothesis: many of the most commonly used emoticons have very different meanings to different people. I’m not anti-emoticon. I’m just pro-lucidity. And there’s some pretty non-lucid stuff going on in the realm of emoticons.
First off, let’s answer at least one thing conclusively:
97.5% of respondents said that smileys should face right : ) while only 2.5% of respondents said they should face left ( :
In conclusion: people who face your smileys to the left: STOP IT.
Okay, moving on to some specifics.
First, 96.7% of respondents agreed that the : ) conveys a positive emotion, but they could not agree on which specific message: “I am happy” led the herd with 57%, but “I am trying to be funny” took 17% and “The sentence is silly (in a good way)” took 14%.
Conclusion: I can overlook this mixed messaging because it’s uniformly positive.
Second, the winky smile ; ) is also uniformly positive. But it’s interesting that only 2% of the respondents use it to mean “I am happy”. By far, it’s used to convey funniness (53.4%) or positive silliness (22%). But it’s also used in the more literal flirty kind of wink, meaning “I like you” 18% of the time.
Conclusion: I could overlook all the mixed positives for the : ) but I can’t overlook the whopping 18% of people who use a ; ) to convey their affection. Essentially, four out of five times someone is simply conveying funniness or silliness, but every fifth time they mean something COMPLETELY different. Still positive, but problematic.
Third, and most egregiously guilty, is : P also known as the tongue-sticking-out face. While mostly positive (funniness and positive silliness represent 71% of meanings), the other 29% is very negative: negative silliness, anger, confusion, and disgust.
Conclusion: People, get it together. Stop using stupid emoticons that people don’t understand. Or, if you insist on using the : P then create some kind of emoticon dictionary and preach your definitions to the world. Until then, I refuse to acknowledge the sticking-out tongue.
This is further exacerbated when I gave you an ambiguous sentence to put an emoticon after. For the sentence “Puppies are cute, but I’d rather have a kitten”, the same number of people used : ) as used : P . And a slightly greater number used ; ) .
Conclusion: WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE MEAN? Why does a kitten warrant a wink? Or a tongue sticking out?
Ultimate conclusion: In the end, all I can say is this: : P
*Note: I had to space my emoticons out (putting a space between the colon and the parentheses, for example) so that WordPress wouldn’t automatically re-format the emoticons to images.
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Um. Yeah.
Rob, I can’t believe you spent so much time on this. But, Don’t you think that it’s the sentence that is important, and then the emoticon that comes after clarifies. So you need to take the two of them together to understand the context…It’s confusing to explain what an emoticon means on its own, but if you put it in context, it can soften a criticism, or tell someone you’re kidding, or whatever.
Jenny, that’s why I had people put an emoticon after the “puppies” sentence–and the emoticons don’t elucidate it at all. (At least not uniformly.)
All of this said, I use smileys all the time.
That’s safe, right?
Hmmm…so you’ve already thought of that. And now I’ve spent too much time thinking about this too. Here’s another thing. Maybe it depends on your relationship with the person you’re corresponding with. Like a smiley face from my son, or you, or my grandma might mean completely different things, but I know them, so I know what they mean. Okay, final word. This is your crazy survey, and I’ll butt out.(and I’ve over-thought which emoticon to use here and I can’t figure out which one. So the one where I like your survey, and think you are really cool, and have a nice day)
Ok, I’m going to get pedantic despite the silliness of the subject. You have only yourself to blame by claiming it was “highly scientific” and “peer reviewed.”
The problems with your research are rampant. Most obvious, your sampling group. In video game chats, for example, the ; ) means flirtation by a much larger group. And can even been taken to mean “I definitely dig you and would enjoy some sort of relationship beyond flirty chatting.” It would appear that few MMO gamers are taking your survey.
Another problem is ignoring fundamental principles of any language, not just the remarkably fluid and non prescriptive English (have you considered learning French? In France they go so far as to legislate that you are not allowed to use “e-mail” and must use the much more cumbersome – even for French – “courier electronique.” That might work for you, Frenchie). Words mean multiple things. Most words, in fact, have multiple entries in the dictionary. I think in most cases, the emoticons carry all those meanings, dependencies including (but not limited to) context, speaker sub-culture, speaker’s dialect, familiarity between speakers, and relationship between speakers. Insisting on a single meaning for ANY word, let alone for vocabulary that is new by nearly any measure, is a foolish crusade: I think even Don Quixote would amused by you.
I think most of those who took the survey would have made use of a “check all that apply” option.
You have also left out a number of more ambiguous emoticons like > . > or : { as well as possible meanings for some of the ones you did use.
I’m afraid this disturbingly low level of rigor in your scholarship will never earn you tenure.
You never even asked about the mooning icon, (_|_) .
You’re right, Randy. This is the most galling of Rob’s failures in this paper.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
About the puppies sentence, I was conflicted about what to put. If the intent was “Puppies are cute, but I’d rather have a kitten (hint, hint). Did I mention that my birthday is coming up?” Then a winking smile might be more appropriate, but if it was expressing sadness/annoyance that I received a puppy when I actually wanted a kitten, then that ambiguous tongue sticking out face would be more appropriate.
So the same sentence might warrant a different emoticon depending on what you are trying to imply.
Is this what you were doing up in your room during LTUE?
How large was your sampling? How random? Did you ask if they could type, or were the emoticons really typos?
i love this =)
for fear of leaving the wrong impression =P
my fave is =D but i use it sparingly
and never use