Japanese emoticons

In computer mediated communication a lot of social cues are lost because we cannot see the body language or gestures of those we are conversing with. As a result, the use of emoticons have become increasing prevalent in CMC. These emoticons help compensate for the sometimes dry and stale nature of on-screen text. In class, we talked about how people use emoticons to represent some social cues to give our online conversation more meaning/feeling. This brought up a good question. How do different cultures express their emotions in CMC?

In Japan, there are a variety of ways to express an even larger variety of expressions/emotions. For example, a Japanese user could use a bowed head to represent "thank you".

ｍ（．＿．）ｍ
[the m's are the hands and the head is slightly lowered due to the position of the eyes]

Another example,
＿|￣|○
[someone on all fours - meaning he/she is tired or in total despair]

From Google I found Japanese Smileys, which is a website that showcases some of the more common emoticons (it's amazing to see the sheer number). It also gives a brief history of how they evolved. It wasn't just a cultural issue but also a technological one as well (Japanese fonts are 2-bit instead of 1-bit for the Roman alphabet).