From the latest history. Part II

In 1980s-1990s smileystizism as a global phenomenon started to develop in a very different way. The first internet smiley developers without philosophizing did their work pragmatically orientated: they began to use combinations of symbols that could be printed with a standard (qwerty) keyboard. One-sidedness and permanency of the received signs have standardized the system and let all smileysts use one intuitive clear smileysticulation in a very short time. Smileysticulation is a word for a process of smiley codification and decodification. But we can also mention the contrary: Those who hasn’t mastered the smileysm ABC use only the simplest symbols. On the other hand this process hasn’t reached its culmination yet: that’s why we can’t wait for smileyscripts – rhymed smileysongs – and far less we can wait for smileypoems in the nearest future.

I have to admit, that at the same time with the new wave of smileys development begins its decline. Hordes of net users master the new space not taking into account its laws and survival rules. There are no (according to the data of the referral service for Russian language) evidences for smiley deepening, that could be a sign of smiley not only as a substitute for facial gesture, gesticulation, intonation but also as a substitute for the language itself. Even now we can define a whole group of abbreviations as in-between language and smileys. First of all this group should include such semantic wordsmileys as IMHO and LOL. If the first one smoothly becomes a stylish element of the literary newspeak, the second one is still a hundred-per-cent smiley.

In light of the rapid smiley development the echo of the African “black footstep” appears extremely interesting and promising. Transfer of smileysticulation of original Nigerian constructions in the everyday life allows us to speak about a some kind of “neo-new wave”, that is likely to flood nit only the whole continent, but also the Russian part of Europe. Take only the usage of smileys like bulls and bears on stock exchange sites! This is the thin edge of the wedge!

Source: http://www.rusyaz.ru.