When you use emoticons, do you mirror their expressions?

No. I keep a blank face when I text, no matter what kind of emotion is in the text. There can be exception though, but mostly it’s because the emotion is extreme.

I’d say the emoticons I use are mimicking me. Sometimes I’m not actually making that expression, but I put it so the receiver of the message knows the tone of the message.

Nah not really. I usually have quite a neutral facial expression, sometimes a smile.

Of course I do.

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Only with my inner orange smiley face.

The only thing that truly mirrors my own personal reaction is “LOL”. If I post that, I have literally laughed and made some sort of noise.

So, no, emoticons don’t necessarily express my facial expression. I’d say emoticons represent what I would do if we were face-to-face. I might smile spontaneously, but I could also smile to show you I mean you to take a comment in a nice way, for example. :-)

Occasionally I’ll make a devilish face >:-) and I’m not sure how to even do that in real life. lol

Emoticons express my intentions whether they mirror my own facial expression or not.

I’ve been considering using some of those. I can’t believe the variety of the things, and my kid tells me there are probably tens of thousands of them available to those who know how to find em.

No hurry there, @stanleybmanly! :-D

No, although I did just shake my head then.

Damn you!!! I never noticed I did that! I will be more careful in the future!

I’m from the stone age and only use “smile”, “wink”, and “sad”.

@LuckyGuy What else is there?

I think I’ve used them once in all the years I’ve been on the net. A weak moment.

I would be sort of embarrassed to use them. No help here I’m afraid.

Nope. I keep a steady face while computing, only occasionally laughing out loud. If that does happen, I’ll describe the level of hilarity using words, not emoji.

The only emoji I usually use is

^_^

which is really hard to do on my phone.

And that’s just a sort of “I’m saying this in a friendly manner” expression. It’s my online resting-nice-face, since you can’t see me grinning like an awkward idiot in person.

^^What is that? A cat?

In my teen years we called it an anime-smily-face. I have no idea what, if any, official name it has.

The inverted Vs are closed eyes.

Oh! Ha. I always thought it was a cat and was a bit puzzled as to its meaning, but it looks friendly so I figured it was a good thing. It’s a friiggin’ face! Mystery solved.

The hell is squint face?

I always thought it was meant to be inscrutable.