Smileys are tiny pictures made from ordinary ASCII characters that are meant to be looked at with the head tilted to the left.

Smileys came about when e-mail correspondents felt the need to convey emotional content such as sarcasm, laughter and other feelings as part of their messages.

Without smileys, simple statements could easily be misinterpreted:

You're an idiot! :-)

Sometime during 1981, Scott Fahlman, who is now a Principle Research Scientist in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, devised a scheme for encoding and conveying one's feelings as small text "glyphs" to overcome this frustration.

Scott was the first to use smileys in electronic mail and in posts to BBS message boards and Internet newsgroups, as well as in personal e-mail.

The Emoticons
:-)	- Humor
:-) (-:	- Masking theatrical comments
:-T	- Keeping a straight face (tight-lipped)
:-D	- Said with a smile
:->	- Alternate happy face
:-) :-) :-)	- Loud guffaw
:*)	- Clowning around
:-?	- Licking lips
%-}	- Silly
:/)	- Not funny
:-"	- Pursing lips
:-r	- Bleahhh (sticking tongue out)
:-f	- Smirks
:-p	- Smirks
:-1	- Smirks
:-,	- Smirks
:-|	- Disgusted
:-J	- Tongue-in-cheek comments
:-!	- Foot in mouth
:-$	- Put your money where your mouth is
:-D	- Talks too much
:-I	- Chewing on bone
%&$%&	- You know what that means...
:-P	- Shouting
:-y	- Shouting
:-o	- Shouting
:-(	- Unhappy
:-c	- Real unhappy
(:-&	- Anger
(:^(	- Broken nose
(:<)	- Blabber mouth
?-(	- Black eye
%-)	- Broken glasses
:-b	- Tongue stuck out
:-p	- Left-handed tongue stuck out
>--->---(@	- A rose
||*(	- Handshake offered
||*)	- Handshake accepted
:-x	- Kiss kiss
o=	- A burning candle to start a flame
~=	- Flaming message
-=	- A doused candle to end a flame
|-<>	- Kissy face
[]	- Hug
(-_-)	- Secret smile
'-)	- Wink
;-)	- Say no more; nudge, nudge
:-*	- Oops! (Covering mouth with hand)
:-#	- Censored
:-8	- Talking out both sides of your mouth
>:>	- Leer
:-X	- Not saying a word
(:-...	- Heart-breaking message...
:-o	- "Oh, noooooo!" (a la Mr. Bill)
#:-o	- Same as previous
...---...	- S.O.S.
:-<	- Forlorn
|-(	- Late night messages
(:-$	- Ill
(:-(	- Sad
%-	- Hung over
:~/	- All mixed up
#-)	- Another all-night partier
:-'|	- With a cold
%+{	- Loser in a fight
( )	- You're kidding!
<:-O	- Eeek!
:-C	- Unbelieving (jaw dropped)
:-(*)	- About to vomit