How to Create IM Emoticons

Video Transcript

"One of the problems with Instant Messenging is that you don't have that face to face recognition that you would have when you are just talking to someone so you don't know really what they are thinking but what has developed over time are emoticons and these are kind of picture glyphs which provide a short hand to emotional expression and we are going to show you how to make some of the thousands that have developed in the last 20 years. There are literally thousands of emoticons that have evolved over the last decade and a half but we are going to show you some of our favorites. Of course the smiley with the colon and the parenthesis is the classic or the basic one and the most over used one some would say and I can see that it has been translated by our Instant Messenger into a more yellow smiley face. A semi colon with a smile is your variation with that signifies a wink and that is also a very popular you sly dog kind of expression. A colon with the other side of the parentheses is a sad face. The sad smiley, very very common. Now this is the raspberry, a colon with a p. I think that is a very broad emoticon. A lot of people use it as a raspberry or just the tongue sticking out that you have made a silly joke. I see that one an awful lot these days. Now this is a straight line with a dash and an o, big mouth someone yelling, very nice kind of multi purpose emoticon. Another fun one is putting your money where your mouth is so a colon, a dash, parentheses and dollar signs. Now you will notice that they don't translate well these days when the Instant Messenger is always looking so you may come and see some of these old school ones don't work as well. This one is a c and equal sign, colon, and parentheses and you've got a chef. That is one of my favorite ones. That is very obscure and I love that one. Again you kind of lose the flavor of it in the Instant Messenger translation although I kind of like the way that came out and you've got a colon, a bunch of dashes and parentheses and that is someone who has got a big nose and he is a big lier. Now coming up is one of my favorites and it is the robot so you go with the carrot, parentheses, a dash, underscore, another parentheses, another carrot and go back and add the dash and you've got a robot face like from Metropolis or one of those science fiction films. That is my all time favorite so enjoy your emoticons and come up with some interesting variations of your own."