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Facebook clearly thinks that if you’re feeling 🙂 then an emoticon speaks 1,000 words. If you’ve used the social network’s chat services recently, you will have noticed a new feature. As you IM your friends you can now add a variety of cartoon characters to your conversation — from Snoopy illustrations and Pusheen fat cats holding birthday cakes to the more traditional smiley faces, but with enhancements such as green vom pouring out of their illustrated mouths.
They’re called “stickers” and you can install various packs (with names such as “meep” and “bun”) to your chat. They are “different than emoticons” says Facebook, but really very much the same — just bigger and (if it’s possible) more annoying.
While in the music video for her latest single, Roar, Katy Perry translates her song lyrics into emoticons, the idea of adding new ones to your messages may seem a little old school. After all, so ubiquitous is the smiley these days that even programs as archaic as Word will change your colons, dashes and brackets into an acid house face. But Facebook is responding to a growing demand for “fun” services from the teen market (full of young ’uns who we’re led to believe can’t express themselves in words, so need pictures). Social networks such as Path and Line (based in Japan) have had them for some time. The difference with Facebook is that its stickers are free. Instead, many of the images are of popular characters from game apps — presumably thereby building a brand loyalty (let’s wait and see if corporate-giants start to get on board, giving you the chance to send your mates a smiling Diet Coke can image). For anyone over 12, making use of this new service is as potentially inappropriate as email-kissing someone you have never met. So here’s the definitive “how-to” for emoticons…sorry, I mean “stickers”.
Be in touch with your feelings
Think hard about your mood and study the sticker packs with care. There truly is a cartoon to express every type of sentiment and explain almost every possible life scenario. One amusing blog has been dedicated to imagining exactly what a number of the “stickers” are designed to express. It suggests, for example, that the screaming pink blob on the previous page explains, “I am having a herpes outbreak due to stress right now.”
Check your tone
The idea of using an emoticon may make you feel like that vomiting green face, but these little images do actually have a use. There are different styles of text-communications the expressive, “OMG!! I would SO love to come round for dinner. Totes amaze!!” and the more brief, “Yes, sounds good,” sort. I subscribe to the latter — the abruptness of which, without tone, can risk sounding rude. I have succumbed in the past to writing 🙁 after “Sorry, can’t,” just to ensure no offence is taken. Just think how much more reassured my friends would feel that I don’t hate them if I included a picture of a crying cat.
Know your age
Some grown-ups I know hate emoticons so much they have a name for any fellow adult who uses them. You’re an emotic**t. If you’re not teenage, think hard before emoticonning. If you’re over-30, think hard, then think hard again.
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