Why do people still use emoticons like :)?

‘Cause it’s fun?

it gives the words you have typed into a more emotional context.

for example:

what tone am i trying to tell you?

i hate you, :) i hate you. :( i hate you. >:( i hate you. >:D

of course i dont hate you… i just used this sentence to make my point..

peace out! :-D

I feel like if I add smileys, i’m being nice or not so serious, but if i’m like, Go die in a hole. With no smileys then i’m serious, & it just makes me seem mean. Rather than. Go die in a hole. :D Then i’m joking, & you can tell & stuffs.

Because it is damn hard to express emotions in plain words.

And if you type a sentence fast and want to express that it is meant as a joke or meant as a friendly statement, then there is no faster or less complicated way than typing an emoticon.

You can of course ponder about your wording until you get the same meaning into plain speech. But that will take so much time that the Internet will simply move on without you. I mean, we are net writing real letters with ink that take two days to get to the recipient. (If we did, we would sure search for ways to give them perfect phrasing.) We write short, fast messages, and dozens, if not hundreds of them per day.

And if you write fast, hurried messages on the fly and do not use emoticons, then you often give the impression to be harsher than you intend to be. Sarcasm will very often be misunderstood. Something that was meant as a joke might be mistaken for a factual statement. You can hardly transport sadness or surprise.

The alternative to emoticons is either to write your emotions out. “I smile happily”. But this will sound weird. Or the “emote” that is used in some online multiplayer games. World of warcraft players will know that they can type “/bounce” in a chat window and then their character starts to bounce. The same was possible in ancient text-only multiplayer games (MUD for example http://funadvice.com/r/3n7uabr5e6. Where you could use the emote “/bounce” to create the message Devlab bounces for other users.

You can use it that way in forums and chats too. People will understand, even if they don’t know the origin emotes. But again, this is more typing, and much slower than a quick colon-minus-bracket smilie. And some people will also think that this sounds weird:

rotten sheep of evil waves at you

because, things that some one may attend as a joke, can sound so mean and be taken the wrong way without! There is no other way to actually expres your emotions on msn, facebook, twitter, funadvice exc. without using them, With my friends, if i don’t put a ‘:)’ at the end of ‘i’m okay’ they badger me for an hour trying to get me to tell them whats wrong. Then again, when i tell them to go away, they will actually stop talking, but if i say ‘go away :)’ they will jump in a joke around with me.

im gonna eat some coco puffs then…….msterbate alott!!! the take a dump and pet my pet chimp.

im gonna eat some coco puffs then…….msterbate alott!!! the take a dump and pet my pet chimp.

I think they use such symbols to express their feelings.

I use them to express in more detail how I am feeling.

It helps with sarcasm, so people know your not being mean. You can’t tell emotions over texting, internet ect… and people get misunderstood a lot of times, which leads to arguments. This way it helps convey what is being said.

it givs correct expression of ur tone nd well is cool :D