Welcome to the "I Hate Emoticons" Page :(
Emoticons are those strange combinations of punctuation symbols that people place in e-mail, on web pages, and anywhere else they can get away with it. Some hate them. Here's why.
Emoticons are ugly. They destroy the line of a page. They force people to rotate the page (or computer monitor) in an attempt to make sense out of them.
Emoticons are dangerous. Rotating a monitor (see above) while keeping one hand on the mouse is a balancing act better left to a circus attempted at home.
Emoticons are stupid. Can't you write well enough to make your intentions known? Do you really need a symbol to express emotion? Shakespeare never used emoticons.
Emoticons are elitist. The main purpose of an emoticon is to tell your reader "I'm hip to cyberspace, I can use these symbols and you have to ask me what they mean". This is very reminiscent of the "10 codes" (i.e. 10-4, 10-200,etc.) during the CB craze. Do you really want to recall that online?
