There was a time in my life when I thought that emoticons were really, really bad news---I was probably under the influence of someone hipper-than-thou who decided showing emotion was just crap--that never ending anything with an ounce of punctuation was best; yeah, being monotone is just the cat's pajamas--I have a friend who has a monotone voice. Although, when she gets excited her voice ladders up a few octaves and kind of gets squeaky, but usually only one word in a sentence is affected by this phenomenon (i.e.: "What are you TALKING about."). Whenever I call her house and ask for her, her brother (who also has this weird monotone voice) will not-so-quietly take the phone away from his ear and yell, also, punctuationless and emotionless: "Darcy Darcy Darcy." Please keep in mind that he is YELLING this.. and manages to yell it COMPLETELY DEVOID OF ALL EMOTION. I like to put a lot of dramatics into my voice; when something is exciting, I usually exclaim it to a ridiculous degree and also, manage to scare the wits out of the person to whom I am talking by grabbing their jacket or their arm or their shirt sleeve to emphasize the sheer EXCITEMENT of it all. Then, after all that, I will give them a look. The look is sort of an intense stare, mouth agape--a stare that I'd like to summon up as: "I JUST CAN'T PHANTOM THIS!" How does this sheer excitement translate online? Well, usually-- simply, CAPITAL LETTERS and.. well, !!!!! and more !!!!!! and yet more CAPITALS and another couple of !!!!!. It doesn't work out nearly as well as I'd planned. I cannot do the intense staring, nor the jacket grabbing. Funnily enough, the emoticon of ":(" manages to break my heart. That glum little parenthesis, its curvature leaking onto the metaphysical chin on the page--those open, teary, never blinking colon eyes--I automatically metaphysically flip to an illustration of a sad, eager-looking dog, a weepy-looking, dopey dog--preferably one who is homeless, and, well, as a consequence of its homelessness, REALLY sad. So at the first initial glances of this emoticon, "The frowny face", I, too, frown. Poor little frowny face. I don't actually feel sorry for the sayer of this emoticon--but rather, the emoticon itself. If I see a person frown, it is usually completely affected and cartoony. Do people actually FROWN when they are sad? I mean, at times when one is crying the mouth automatically turns down in an attempt to not-cry, but, really.. frowning is such an action that was totally invented by cartoons. No one frowns. Except on the computer screen, and that's when it really gets to me. It seems that the really joyful emotions are so comedic and social--being happy involves grabbing someone's jacket and laughing and staring intensely through smoke--the other ones, though, the ones I see most often on the computer screen; they just aren't visual. Or visible. When I'm sad I go to two places: under my covers, or online into #sinister. I'm thankful for those who have had to see me come to a point where I'm tapping out a frowny face; it doesn't happen all together too often, but when it does, thank you. And for others who want to use a frowny face--well, I'd hope to think I could do the same. Ok, enough of me being sappy. ;) Hands on the table, mandee m a y +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+