I Hate Emoticons

[SlasherX]

Emoticons are annoying and asinine, in short they suck. If you use an emoticon it makes me think you are a twelve year old girl or that you are so inarticulate you can't get your point across. Emoticons annoy the living shit out of me and I was wondering what the Escapist community thinks. But since a lot of you use them I get the feeling I'm going to be flamed and or banned for this thread since the mods probably use them and won't like my stance.

>Look at it. Doesn't it annoy the shit out of you.

 

[AMMO Kid]

Me too, they make me sad

 

[RatRace123]

It does annoy me. It mainly comes off as stupid to me.
Not much more to say about it except, yeah totally in agreement with you, emoticons suck.

 

[Catchy Slogan]

Only when they are overused/ used in the wrong way. For example, A ' ' can show that you are trying to make a joke with your statment, and since you can't pass the tone/ inflection of your voice over the internet, it becomes a valuable tool.

 

[Ice Car]

Emoticons are annoying and asinine, in short they suck. If you use an emoticon it makes me think you are a twelve year old girl or that you are so inarticulate you can't get your point across. Emoticons annoy the living shit out of me and I was wondering what the Escapist community thinks. But since a lot of you use them I get the feeling I'm going to be flamed and or banned for this thread since the mods probably use them and won't like my stance.

>Look at it. Doesn't it annoy the shit out of you.

Although you attached discussion value to it, you made a rather rude comment that may net you an infraction or something.

It doesn't really annoy me at all. In my opinion, it sometimes helps distinguish the nature of a post. Internet sarcasm may be easier to distinguish with emoticons, mood, etc. It does not annoy the shit out of me at all, it is just a small way of expressing oneself. n_n

lol, everyone is using emoticons on purpose.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

What's the problem with emoticons? Used properly and sparingly, they're an important part of internet discourse; voice tone does not transfer well over text, at least not without writing multiple pages of it just to get the point across. Forum posts, even the really long ones, are a lot shorter form than that, and emoticons are occasionally useful. Think about it -- they prevent a lot of flamewars, because they can be the difference between an ad hominem attack, and a harmless joke.

Edit: Think about how books are written. They're full of little comments like "'Nice hat' he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm." Emoticons fill in the "his voice dripping with sarcasm" part a lot better than going Nice hat, or worse, *sarcastically*Nice Hat*sarcastically*. Doesn't "Nice hat XD" just work better?

 

[JoJo]

I like them, I feel they add a little humanity to what otherwise can look like boring normal sentences ;-)

 

[Evil Moo]

I don't mind them at all. They can add to or change the meaning of a sentence concisely and efficiently.
^_^

 

[BlindMessiah94]

Unfortunately it is impossible to clearly derive emotional context from a written statement on the internet. That's why we use emoticons or add tags like /sarcasm to the end of a sentence.

If you don't agree, read my entire above sentence again, only this time, in a sarcastic voice.

Emoticons are a valuable tool for written conversation.

 

[siahsargus]

I feel your pain. But can't you just roll with the language like everyone else is, after all you don't want your text to look archaic. you need some way to convey basic emotion in an online setting, and since you can't hear my voice, I need a visually easy-to-read shorthand for how I want the text to be read. THEY SERVE THE SAME ROLE AS THE EXCLAMATION MARK OR THE CAPS LOCK KEY! When you read my sentence just then, you probably read it as yelling, as opposed to the rest of the text, which was read in a gender-neutral moderate-decibel "normal" voice. And now you know

 

[subtlefuge]

Unfortunately it is impossible to clearly derive emotional context from a written statement on the internet. That's why we use emoticons or add tags like /sarcasm to the end of a sentence.

If you don't agree, read my entire above sentence again, only this time, in a sarcastic voice.

Emoticons are a valuable tool for written conversation.

Emoticons are way better than /sarcasm. Sarcasm is, or should be delicate.

 

[richd213]

I am entirely in agreement with you

 

[TheMagicIndian]

I don't mind them when they aren't overused or given special animations like Skype does with them. I view them as tools to make your expressions or tone of voice come across in writing.

 

[CommanderKirov]

I'm annoyed by them. I can live with seeing them but I just do not understand the trend of it all.

 

[Ice Car]

I'm annoyed by them. I can live with seeing them but I just do not understand the trend of it all.

You're totally right and I agree with you. If you read back, at least 5 people including myself most certainly explained there is no purpose for emoticons.

 

[Thespian]

I use them in chat because I tend to be randomly eccentric in chat.

I occasionally use them in more srs business-y posts, but just to clarify my feelings if I don't want to get too wordy. I usually do, so they can be handy if I just want someone to know I'm cool with them or not.

Plus it's cool when you are with a group of friends and you begin to get a trend of common smilies.

:V
>:}
D
>:O
D:>
._.
._____.

 

[Gabanuka]

I piss off my friends by using -_- but i think it makes a good point.

 

[brunothepig]

They can be used to express emotion or tone, a lot better than any other method I can think of in text based communication. That said, I don't think I've used emoticons on these forums, not really sure why. It just seems weird. I still have no problem with those that do.
But on facebook, or chatting with friends or whatever, I use them fairly frequently. As I said, the tone thing is important, it's also very convenient.
After all, which seems like a stranger response to, say, my girlfriend informing me she can come visit me this weekend? "I am happy" or " ".

 

[CommanderKirov]

I'm annoyed by them. I can live with seeing them but I just do not understand the trend of it all.

You're totally right and I agree with you. If you read back, at least 5 people including myself most certainly explained there is no purpose for emoticons.

I'm annoyed by them. I can live with seeing them but I just do not understand the trend of it all.

EDIT.
I have no idea how I did that... But I'm too lazy to fix this.