Write! Bring it home!

19-Sep-82 11:44    Scott E  Fahlman             :-)
From: Scott E  Fahlman :
I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways.  Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends.  For this, use

:-(

We’re writer’s right? Then why the need for accentuating what you say? I’m meaning, the emoticon frenzy. Sure here I go again, calling writers out on using a smiley to accentuate, as if their words can not be digested unless an emoticon is in place.
 
Imagine this: You enter to read a blog post, the words, the story, all fall down like rain in a downspout, because the person has accentuated every sentence or every other sentence with a smiley, or five smiley’s for that matter. Would you stay and enjoy that persons writing?
 
Now imagine opening a novel, and inside there is emoticons, accentuating sentences. You’d tire of it real quick? Would you even read it or take the writer serious? I know I wouldn’t. I would think that that person is not a writer at all and in his/her need to bring home an emotion, he used smiley to do the work. Read more on the advent of smiley here:  

What did we do before emoticons came into our life? Was our life a boring flop on the big pillows? Was our life in front of another box, called a television instead of a computer? Were we so lazy to speak, that our lives were meaningless until the arrival of smiley? I personally use the exclamation mark for emphasis. For a strong emphasis I use many!!! I use the emoticon sparingly; a smile, not to emphasize my writing, a smile because well, it is sharing a joy of an emotion felt. To over use it? That's abuse!!!
 
While researching the smiley. I stumbled upon an interesting fact, many explanations to be exact. Abraham Lincoln used the first emoticon we call smiley and implanted it in our psyche. Our conscious carried it around for years, not even knowing it!
 
The president’s speech was moving along, and he had breaks like (applause) and he went on writing and then something appears, (applause and laughter;)  His sentence was the first recorded emoticon in history. ;) We relate the colon, semi colon with laughter.
 
Now I don’t know about you, when I’m writing, I don’t sit and laugh. When reading I don’t sit and laugh. When talking to someone, again, I don’t do it through laughter.  I liked this statement from the wikifiles, “Emoticons are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text.” With that said, are we an emotional society fixated on the keyboard, that need to relay an emotion all the time? Change and improve? Do we need to convey that we are laughing or smiling so someone doesn’t misunderstand us and takes what we are saying as serious? Are we that gullible of a society that we can not get by without a smiley for conveying emotion?
 
I can understand a community of online people (chatters and social networks) needing smiley. But a community of writers? The very people who can express words and meanings like no other people? A world of writers who can bring it home for me in no other way? If you need to abuse smiley, not just emoticons, actual smiley faces have replaced that, because not even the EMOTICON can get across the true sense of what a person is saying and feeling anymore, because you can’t get the emotions right in your writing?  Please don’t call yourself a writer, you make us all look a little loopy too!