Emoticon Happy.......

It seems that in today's wireless tech savvy world, it's all about being quick and abbreviated! When text messages took over the old days of 2001 where people would actually conversate on the phone, I was surprised that people were okay by not talking on the phone anymore. With the worldwide acceptance and success of text messaging it was just a matter of time before that became streamlined into something even quicker and nerdier!

Back in the day, and when I say this I'm talking about 2001-2004, when texting was the new craze I would receive messages similar to these;

Alok 2002 "How you feeling today?"
Turd 2002 "I feel so sick today"

Alok 2009 "How you feeling today?"
Turd 2009 ":-("

Alok 2002 "How did your date go last night?"
Turd 2002 "It was great, she's really cool"

Alok 2009 "How did your date go last night?"
Turd 2009 ":-)"

Can someone please tell what the hell happened to society and how we've chosen to communicate amongst one another?? It was bad enough that I couldn't hear my friends voices, but now I can't even get a straight answer out of them. We've resorted to having to speak in symbols similar to how the cavemen did back in B.C. I know that in the fashion world it's a known cycle that the old always comes back in style, but c'mon now!! I have to communicate with my friends through an assortment of face gestures??

Emoticons actually came to life back in 1982, but became popular because they were used by writers to add emotional overtones to their text. They claim that it adds a humanizing influence, and by injecting one of the gay smiley's into your writing you can dramatically alter the readers's perceptions. When you think about it this makes perfect sense, but then you hand it to generation X and the whole concept gets destroyed.

Guys already have a tough enough time trying to understand girls, but now you throw these random smiley faces into the mix and you might as well just rip our heads off. I'm just saying!!! I read this online....true story;

Boy "Hey hun, how are you doing?"
Girl "Not bad:) LOL"
Boy "Is something funny?"
Girl "I'm pregnant babe ;-)"

I'll let you figure that one out!

I was on the phone with my good partner in crime, Mr. Hollywood, and was sharing my ideals concerning emoticon's. He instantly wanted to share his thoughts with the rest of you today as well. Read below;

Is it not a sad, sad world we live in? What ever happened to the laugh out loud, not the lol but the actual big chuckle that you would give when one of your friends got hit in the balls with a basketball? What ever happened to the smile that you would give to the cute chick first thing in the morning at work? What ever happened to you calling your friend to send them your condolences when they lost a pet? What ever happened to the birthday phone call from your aunt? I will tell you what happened to all of those things and alot of other things in your day to day life.....they have been replaced by Emoticon!

It's very sad that we do not know how to express our feelings and emotions on a daily basis anymore. We as a society have put them in emails and facebook messages as icons instead of picking up the phone, or going for a drink with a friend when we want to share something funny or sad with them. We write them an email "sorry to hear about fluffy, always loved that cat of yours :( take care". Pick up the damn phone and call the person or take them out for coffee.

We live in a society that does not have time for that anymore, or maybe just maybe we have become to lazy and have found a way to sneak by not showing our actual feelings. You actually never laugh out loud anymore at work when you get that funny email, you just send an email back to that person saying "good one, LOL". Come on, the person is not going to have a horrible day if you did not actually laugh at their silly email joke of which you've already seen ten times this week! Or that smile that you would have given that co worker first thing in the morning is now an IM later that morning, "Morning Mel :)", dude you just walked by her like 10 minutes ago! That birthday phone call has now turned into the birthday facebook message, "Happy Birthday Frank! :) Another year older :p ". Sad sad sad stuff.

Bet you can't go a day without writing hahaha, when that text was not funny at all or going a day without writing LOL in an email or a text, when you never actually laughed out loud. Come on now people, get some class back in your lives and TALK to each other instead of emailing, IM, texting or Facebooking your emotions to one another!

- Hollywood

All Class All The Time!