Emoticons

Emoticons are markers of emotion in messages (including e-mail, newsgroup, forum, and text messaging). First invented in 1982 at Carnegie Mellon University by Scott Fahlman, the original emoticons were simple combinations of ASCII characters that looked vaguely like smiling or frowning faces when viewed sideways: :-) :-( They were intended to indicate a humorous or displeased mood, to disambiguate messages that could sometimes be unclear with the absence of the facial expressions which are visible in in-person talk.

Since that early time, the repertoire of emoticons has greatly increased with many different expressions being simulated with character combinations. Also, many mail and forum programs convert emoticons into graphical symbols that more clearly show smiling, frowning, and other expressions. The Japanese set of "emoji", an extended graphical emoticon set that is now part of the Unicode character set, is popular in text messaging in recent times and has even spawned an |"Emoji Movie".

Emoji

 * Emoji (Wikipedia)
 * Scientists Describe Their Work In Emoji And The Results Are Hilarious
 * Unicode emojis
 * 2015: The Year of Emoji Diversity
 * Android 5.0 Emoji Changelog
 * The Appeal Of Emoji: They Don't Say Anything
 * Emojipedia: look up emoji characters/graphics
 * Google emoji list
 * Top five nonsensical relationships you have to remember to be able to find the right emoji, ever
 * Color Emoji in Windows 8.1—The Future of Color Fonts?
 * Americans love skulls, Brazilians love cats – most-used emoji revealed in SwiftKey report

Other

 * Emoticon (Wikipedia)
 * Emoticons (Dan's Mail Format Site)
 * CMU BBoard thread where emoticons were introduced in 1982
 * Emoticon Style: Interpreting Differences in Emoticons Across Cultures
 * The Human Brain Now Reacts to Emoticons Like Real Faces
 * The Life and Times of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 * 1800s Victorian Emoticons
 * Something Awful smilies