Facebook emoticons – how to add them and what do they mean?

Emoticons – known almost all over the world among internet and mobile phone users, they will soon celebrate their 40th birthday. What is the meaning of the emotes? How to add them? And finally, why should you use them on social communication portals?

Facebook emoticons – what are they?

We owe the appearance of emotes in our lives to jokers at Carnegie Mellon University and a certain computer scientist who decided to use punctuation marks to denote bad or serious news 🙁 and humorous 🙂. 

Many years passed and during that time an array of special characters was used and hundreds of combinations were invented before the well-known yellow round faces with various facial expressions appeared.

Well, what is all this for? As the name of the emoticon indicates (emotion + icon), emotes replace what is difficult to convey in the text, i.e. emotions. With their help, you can express sadness, joy, surprise and even malaise. Sometimes it is enough to send one emote to determine what emotions we are experiencing at any given moment.

Emoticons started popping up everywhere – in text messages, e-mail and instant messaging. So it was foreseeable that with the appearance of Facebook in 2004, they would become an integral part of this portal. Anyway, it was the next step in the development of emotes, because in addition to the private message, they also began to appear in posts.

How to use emoticons on computer or phone?

Admittedly, since the emoticons appeared in the pictorial version, using them has become much easier – there is no need to memorize the sequence of characters anymore, and after receiving a message containing a sequence of symbols, wonder “what the poet meant”.

It’s very easy to add them to your message or Facebook post! In the case of a computer, just hover the cursor over the emoticon icon, left-click and select the one that suits us best at the moment and from the whole set of various emoticons.

The same applies to telephones. Here you just need to fire up the on-screen keyboard, press the icon representing the emoticon and decide what you want to convey with the selected theme.

It is also worth mentioning here that Facebook, Messenger or WhatsApp offer us only some of the emoticons existing in iOS or Android in their menu. Fortunately, there are many websites that offer a huge selection of emojis ready to be copied.

The importance of emoticons 

Today’s emoji are not only “smileys” with which you can express your mood – they are also plants, animals, activities, food and drinks, as well as occasional icons and even flags. The meaning of facial expressions and signs is also very diverse, so we’llI will try to describe a few of them:

Smiling face

Smiling face is probably the most popular. Most often it means a positive mood and contentment, but beware – if the “smile” does not match the content of the message, this emoticon takes on a sarcastic meaning.

Grinning face with closed eyes

This is probably the happiest face of all. It expresses joy, excitement and loud laughter. An important element is not only a wide smile, but also “laughing” eyes – which means true, sincere joy or laughter. A variation on this emote is a couple of versions with tears in their eyes. Tears of laughter, of course!

Mouth with an outstretched tongue

It is nothing more than joking around with friends, emphasizing the relaxed atmosphere and, at the same time, making sure that the interlocutor does not take the words too seriously.

Sad face

Well … overall the mood sucks. This emote represents sadness, disappointment, and depression. Most often it is used to remember an unpleasant event. Depending on the situation, we can replace an ordinary sad face with a smiley with a tear or a crying emote. They are all very telling.

Irritated, red face.

It exactly means “don’t come with fire or I’ll explode.” It’s not even anger anymore, it’s rage – it’s better not to speak.

Hugging emoji

As you can imagine, this emoji means expressing support and sympathy for the other person.

Shrug

This emoji is nothing but an expression of disapproval, indifference and ignorance. It can also show the interlocutor that “we don’t care” about the situation being described.

And now, for a change, a few symbols:

Violet heart

What does the violet heart mean? It is primarily forbearance and compassion, but also love. Because it also means caring and caring, it is most often used in parent-child relationships.

Blue heart

What does a blue heart mean? It’s just “I trust you.” It is a symbol of friendship, platonic love, fidelity and loyalty. It also symbolizes autism awareness support.

Red heart

Classic love – great, real and romantic. Most often used in relation to a loved one.

Dollar

The dollar sign is usually used in the most obvious sense – to emphasize the price and luxury status of something or a significant cash flow.

There are also emotes that you can use on specific occasions, such as birthdays. It is, for example, an emoji with a cake, a confetti cone or a smiley face in a characteristic birthday hat. Holidays are Santa Claus, a Christmas tree, a bunny, a chicken in an eggshell, a pumpkin, a Chinese red envelope, etc.

Related: Facebook Dating – How to use it and is it worth it?

However, when using emotes, pay attention to which country your interlocutor comes from, because you may inadvertently offend him. Impossible? And yet! Including a hand that is liked by metal fans, a hand in the horns for an inhabitant of southern Europe means a cuckold, fingers crossed for success in Vietnam mean female genitals, while a thumb raised up – meaning an innocent “OK” – in the Middle East means an offensive gesture, and in Brazil homosexuality or vulgar ” screw you”.

Also as you can see – what a country is a custom!

Are stickers emotes?

Although the stickers offered by social networks are deceptively similar to emoticons – especially those with yellow faces – they are two completely different things. Of course, we can express our emotions with both emoticons and stickers, but the difference is that we can add emojis in the middle of a sentence – without stopping writing, while stickers are a completely separate element – just like a GIF or a picture.

All in all, using emotes on Facebook may not be essential, but it certainly makes communication easier. The creators of FB themselves take care of variety and often add new emojis, such as the rainbow icon that appeared on the occasion of Gay Pride Month or the emote with a mask in connection with the pandemic situation in the world. However, whether or not you will use them is entirely up to your decision!

Main picture source: eska.pl