Boycott emoticons!
winnjewett
Registered Users Posts: 329 Major grins
As many of you know, I'm not one to hold back when something is bothering me. EMOTICONS. I hate them, especially that yellow one with the stupid smile and curved eyelids that keeps rolling back and forth. They take over my peripheral vision as I type every message. They are nauseating.
You know, before the age of computers, people survived for hundreds of years writing letters to each other without the aide of bouncing, rolling, scratching, shrugging, crying, winking circles. If there aren't enough written words to express yourself properly, why not opt for the tried and true :-) and all of his cousins? It is bad enough when web advertisers place annoying, distracting ads on sites we have no control over, but why in God's name would anyone choose to do this to themselves.
Stand up for health and sanity. Boycott emoticons!
-winn
You know, before the age of computers, people survived for hundreds of years writing letters to each other without the aide of bouncing, rolling, scratching, shrugging, crying, winking circles. If there aren't enough written words to express yourself properly, why not opt for the tried and true :-) and all of his cousins? It is bad enough when web advertisers place annoying, distracting ads on sites we have no control over, but why in God's name would anyone choose to do this to themselves.
Stand up for health and sanity. Boycott emoticons!
-winn
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Comments
Fortunately, if you use Firefox, you have a couple of options. The best one, IMO, is to prevent the things from moving. True, they still represent a laziness of expression, but at least if they don't move they aren't as distracting. The cheerleader is espeically improved by this. Here's how:
A side benefit is that it also stops the avitars from moving. Ahhh...
There is a more radical remedy. Download and enable the AdBlock extension and block the emoticons on an individual basis, or block them all with the regular expression http://www.dgrin.com/images/smilies/*-Ti.gif
Unfortunately, this is kind of a pyrrhic victory because you won't see anything and thus won't be able to understand 1/2 of what gets said here. It puts you in the same situation as the ones who don't read the words. But it's satisfying to know that you can.
I wish there was an image-replace Firefox extension, so that the smilies could just be replaced with appropriate words, but nobody seems to have written that once. Wait long enough, and I bet someone will.
please dont kill them.....
besides, without the emoticons, we wouldn't be able to see humungus dance!
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live a little, rutt!
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Ahhh! Once.
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I want to join.
:nono we don't put "non-smiley" people on the smiley committee
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I'm ready to join, too!
Might as well complain that calculators have robbed people of the ability to do math, or that that new fangled printing press has destroyed the art of calligraphy!
Seriously, I agree that the English language, when properly used, can convey all the necessary nuances for expression. However, as we see time and again, people easily misinterpret intent, and attribute incorrect motivations and meanings to posts in forums such as these. Smilies are a nifty shorthand for giving words an emotional context.
Perhaps people would benefit from greater skill in writing. Perhaps they could also learn to fly an airplane? Just as likely to happen.
I, for one, still remember the 70's and 80's, even the bulk of the 90's, when a great whining was heard throughout society that modern communications had rendered obsolete the tradition of letter writing. There was great fear that we'd forget how to write.
So I take heart that the internet has encouraged the return of written expression. And if time and progress also bring us the
Beside, winjewett, you really weaken your argument when you say this :-) is preferable to this
Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
It would be nice if people actually did read and write. But I'm realistic. We can't have everything.
I've turned off animations completely. It's the animated emoticons that are annoying.
And honestly, to me a love of all these cute, winking bouncing, etc. circles is akin to having a fetish for stuffed animals. Oddly juvenile in an adult. Sorry, Andy, but I had to say it.
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"Failure is feedback. And feedback is the breakfast of champions." - fortune cookie
This reminds me of something I read in the newspaper recently. Can't quite place it...
And honestly, to me a love of all these cute, winking bouncing, etc. circles is akin to having a fetish for stuffed animals. Oddly juvenile in an adult. Sorry, Andy, but I had to say it.
Nothing.
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Hmmmmm...maybe I should have used an emoticon to indicate that I'm just having fun?
Truth is, they annoy me, but, hey, that's my problem isn't it?
Emoticon on!
Especially if you want to annoy me.
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They change the tone of the msg.
- Comic Book Guy
After years of frequenting forums and chatrooms, I've really grown to like these little toons. Since you can't see the body language or hear the intonation of the people who post, these guys help me better understand where they are coming from. It's soooooooo easy to take things the wrong way on a forum/chatroom. But if the sentence that offends you is followed by a
I'm sure it's a personal taste issue and that's cool. If some folks don't want to use them, that's fine by me. Same, with people who use them. If people aren't responding to posts because the poster used emoticons, that's pretty sad.
Steve
I don't think that's happening.
And now that I've turned off animations, I'm happy. I don't mind emoticons, I just hate the animations.
And I like to poke fun at those who use them, but would never take away their right to use them (if I even had the power to do that!)
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I was going to write these exact words (well, maybe not quite, but darn close). But by the time I got here David had already done it. Technology saved the day for me. Now that they've stopped mindlessly repeating their movements, they are no longer annoying.
Those of us who don't use emoticons really do need to try to keep our messages clear. That's fair. But I think it's also fair for us to want people to read with a little thought. Sometimes humor and irony seem so much better to me without a giant billboard to point them out.
David and Rutt,
Good to hear this forum has the sort of people I thought it had as members ( ) I would have inserted a "smiley" emoticon there but I respect your opinions.
I have to agree with Rutt, on the "laugh here" mentality that emoticons can foster. Sort of like going to a hockey game and being prompted, by the scoreboard, to "CHEER". I never quite grasped tha one
Steve