In today's breakneck, frantic, hectic world, emojis have taken the place of the beloved emoticon. Their blistering popularity has spawned a less than stellar movie (and to say that this is sugar-coating things is putting it mildly). There are more than three times as many emojis as PokƩmon, yet how many of these do we wind up using on a weekly, even yearly basis?

Some of my favorite emojis are:

~But~

...what about emoticons? You know, the little faces like :), >:(, etc... where did these go!? Well, nowadays, if you try typing one of these into, for example, Facebook Messenger, they will auto-"correct" to an emoji. Now, isn't that just a tad disappointing. However, there is still some power in our mits to circumvent this; for instance, try typing "=]". This is a bonafide emoticon, and (as of December 2024), these websites still aren't privy to it. So, it's safe to use.

When I was a kid, I tried making my own emoticons. For instance:

It's a pirate wearing an eyepatch! Pretty clever, no?

Alright, I'll admit, emoticons are not that cool... at least, not as cool as ASCII.

(慅źˆļ¹ƒźˆ)*gįµ’įµ’į’„ įµ‘ā±gį‘‹įµ—ā™”(źˆļ¹ƒźˆć……)*