Lately, I have been told my cynical face looks like this guy...
That explains why i put him as my profile pics anywhere i can.
(an emoticon from the LINE app for Iphone)
And i was surprised by how much this little rabbit resembled me!!!
I have a mafia-like look Just like him!
Put aside the resemblance between me and him, when it comes to Emoticons, I have always been a heavy user of emoticons when texting mails, I attached icons almost after every sentence that sometimes I was told that I overused them. But that is what Emoticons are for when you want to show the reader how your facial expressions would be like at the moment, isn't it. Compared to a mail of only words and words, you are happier to receive a mail with some cute emoticons inside right, because no one can resist cute things. That's my theory.
For that theory, I am supported by my Japanese cellphones, which are installed with tons of emoticons inside to "enjoy". My old cellphone was a simple one with no outstanding functions but it already got more than 200 emoticons inside to choose from.
(source:http://www.dfnt.net/t/photo/extra_img3/softbank_emoji.gif_
Something similar to this
For my current Iphone, I love how they even design a special set of Emoticons only for Japanese keyboard. Besides, the keyboard called "Emoticons" already installed for free in Japanese Iphone, when you turn on Japanese keyboard, you will get a set of Made-in-Japan emoticons. They are cute and simple like this:
I made use of them a lot. And the thing is people here in Japan are frivolous users of Emoticons. Guys and girls all use Emoticons. Emoticons are a tool to decorate your emails to make them look cute and special to the reader.
Imagine, when you want to say, you failed to get out of your bed because its to cold outside, instead of describing something long and people will forget, use an emoticon like this:
_|￣|○⇒_|＼○_⇒_/＼○_⇒____○_
Or you want to describe you're about to cry, try something like this:
Everyone can totally get your point!
It's amazing that you will never know the limitation of Emoticons in Japan. They can make anything, any kind of expressions out of some simple strokes. The other day I tried out free Apps on Apple store called 顔文字５０００ and Girl'sデコメ. There are unlimited emoticons and they are constantly being updated. That's freaky but amazing at the same time. Now emails will get flashier and flashier!
A lot of my friends in american are surprised at my gaudy mails and constantly asked me about how to write those emoticons. I advised them about the wonder of Japanese keyboard on Iphone and they started to use the keyboard just for emoticons. Also I am seeing the popularity of Japanese emoticons nowadays on the internet instead of the old america's horizontal emoticons.
Even though emoticons are helpful, It's common sense to use them with caution. It's fun to decorate mails with them but you dont want to make an Emoticon Chaos like this:
...
Anyway, try them out and see how many expressions you can make!
