Internet Phenomanon #1 - Emoticon(fusion)

So...let's explain: I'm weak against smileys, emoticons etc.

Normally, like 6 months ago, I wouldn't even dare to use them since I've found them totally overused and way too clichéed.

Guess what happened. XD

Yeah...that moment where you realize that you spam them unconsciously all over the place. Which doesn't mean that you know about them completely.

Here are some thoughts and the award for the in my opinion most confusing emoticons.

I May Welcome This Series First

Ladies and Gentlemen: Internet Phenomanon - a series about stuff concerning the internet or virtual stuff and communication. I hope that it will be my first constantly updated series of stuff. So, I guess you may figure out the "typo" (which really isn't one, really people!) but hey, it's a better design, I think.

Now to the actual topic:

I am quite amazed at the change of mine in general and the internet: always finding new facettes and aspects of the internet exposed and clearly visible for me while I find myself older and older every day.

Joke aside, emoticons are really a strange thing. From :D to ._. to o3o (while o3o is the one which I hate the most of all, really!) there is always something interesting to find. And some ugly-looking ones, too, of course.

It bugs me especially since I am German. If you browse through German-dominated videos, you'll see the amount of this thing in the comments: ":D"

What the heck?! Believe it or not, Germans abuse it like hell! Whether the commenter gives out a slightly happy, very happy or even very insulting comment à la "Hey, MOFO, you suck balls :D". Question is: WHY?!

And that is where I find emoticons annoying. People, do you not know when to use it?

That's just damn confusing; which already leads me to the next part~

Con(fusion)

Simple subtitle this time, ain't I right? May confuse you, doesn't it?

Well, with emoticons it's the same: if you break out of the norm, you'll get confused.
Making ironic comments with a highly cynical message and still using such an emoticon of happiness like :D is kinda insulting, just my opinion though.

Because after all the research: what do you want to tell the people?

About how many fucks you give when somebody criticizes you or haters gonna hate or I regret nothing? Admittedly, the fusing of emoticons is quite an interesting concept for me; but it has come to a state where I am totally lost.

Seriously, how many times do you ask yourself daily what he wants to say because some strange emoticon is hindering your path to enlightenment?

It does many times for me - a recent emoticon abuser to be honest - but for my defense, I don't use them in the most strange or confusing ways.

On the other hand, I cannot deny a certain fact: they have a strange impact and change in personality till the point where it may manipulate your mood or conscious.

Earlier, I wasn't paying much attention to the ECs (I shorten it for redundancy's sake, forgive me, folks, for being lazy) and thus I've found them very unimportant; but time after time, some grew on me and I became a user of them; thanks to Skype, MSN & Co. because they were cute, cool or just golden! (Literally golden in Skype)

However, at some point I feel heavily influenced by them; I realized it when I've thought about how I pay much more attention to the ECs than the actual message possibly misinterpreting the message and mood of the other one. And they define my expressions a bit in the sense of that I mimic way more than earlier because I use a certain EC.

That's why I've set the aim to use them only sparsely and only for the sake of confirmation or heavy emotions. Using XD all the time when I find something amusing in the slightest may be totally overkill so I hold back with them which will be hard for most of my contacts. Reason: they will think I am down because I don't really use them often. It's a getting used to the situation.

But now, some ECs which boggle me besides their meaning which I can't really figure out...

The Oscars go to...

:3 - how typical of a name Oscar is. But this is one of the candidates for the most confusing ECs. :3 should represent a cat when I...am...right(?) It is a strange one since I cannot really make a damn out of it. Whether it should mean 'happy', 'amused', 'jolly', 'slobbering on stuff' (for me it's really more a slobber-slobber face than a cat face to be honest XD) or even 'sly' and 'mischievous' - this EC surely is worth to be a candidate.

o3o - the award for the most ugly one. I can imagine that it should represent a duckface - and seeing that I am veeeery skeptical of hipsters and girls wanting to be hip, you can imagine how much I like them: NOT THE LEAST MONECULAR BIT!!!

And the meaning is quite ominous for me, too.

My imagination says 'LOL', 'gotta troll', 'pranking ya' or 'I don't care'. I really am confused and for the sake of true feelings, I will look into Urban Dictionary AFTER I have uploaded this post. But let's see what it really means so it will be very interesting to see.

._. - ominous as well. Annoyed, anybody? Yeah: me. Why? Because I have no clue what that actually means. It is one where I may get what the meaning by simply looking at it, but the senders of these stick and slap it at such different messages and as result, the meaning of the EC is different. In the end, I wonder when my face becomes as small as this EC - which remembers me now of a Spongebob episode with this small face, too; I forgot in which situation they did it though; but remembering that scene of Spongebob makes that ._. more bearable.

-.- - I just find it ugly. Mishappened bird, little ugly airplane or a hole; I just don't like it.

Doesn't mean others aren't allowed to use when in touch with me but I may assume that you all get the gist of what I mean.

:* - find it ugly, too. No comment. But especially girls use it at times (not that often though) when they wanna kiss. Yeah, it means kiss; which kiss is up to your imagination and I love applying the worst imagination to it. That's how much of a (lovable) jerk I am.

:D - see paragraph 1.

And last but not least:

c: / :> / :c - I don't find them really likable because they remind me of something. I think of a fish or cartoons where the mouth and lips get all wobbly and so on; it kinda scared me since childhood. Or it reminds me of a squid. The third one looks like a weak human who would cower on the ground and just cries for pity. I guess these three could represent a squid mouth very well, too.

I hope that I could give you some (it isn't as ranty as it seems when only writing it that way) but when something bugs or boggles me totally, it can become a semi-rant.

I hope it doesn't happen too often. -_-
This was actually one EC I like to use since it shows how amazed I am - totally not. XD

But okay, okay, hope it gave some insight to my mind and that I could give you all some thoughts on emoticons. A comment would be even better!

So, see ya folks!