Feb
26
I have been using the Gmail “beta” (why is it still in beta?) for a couple of years now, and I genuinely dig it. In a blink, Gmail has wedged itself onto a short list of must-haves for the web savvy — again. Yep, Gmail is now one of at least two slots dominated by the same corporate titleholder (not mentioned in this post for some reason).
Back in the old daze, I was chatting and IMing on MSN Messenger with my web friends in Marietta (almost always Wheat, especially if thunderstorms were on the way), India, Argentina, and elsewhere through the wee hours of the morning, virtually every morning; I mean, there was some serious chat going on. Soon I became quite the emoticon collector. I would stay up all night chatting with my web development colleagues and we’d laugh our asses off as we got jiggy with the seemingly endless supply of emoticons.
Later I switched to a new laptop and did not even install Messenger; I was trying not to bog my down my fresh, fast, clean computer with unnecessary applications, which is one of the reasons I tried Gmail and switched to it shortly thereafter. I quickly became accustomed to the plain-jane Gmail chat. I did not mind the plainness, though; after all, Gmail is so lightweight and fast, and besides, the high degree of simplicity is somehow just inherently cool.
But tonight, I needed to pimp my chat, yo! I wanted to convey some of my seemingly important emotional states and reactions via Gmail, so I started poking around. I was somewhat pleased to find a chart of very basic, not- too-graphically- impressive emoticons. For a complete list of official not- too-graphically- impressive Gmail emoticons, please see the chart in Gmail’s Help Center.
There’s more. You can make text bold by surrounding it with asterisks like *this*. Another one is >.< There are quite a few other miscellaneous Gmail emoticons that people are figuring out, but I did not see a single comprehensive list anywhere; you’ll find some within the blog posts on other sites and their related comments; see links below. (Word is, rich emoticons will be available in the next version of Gmail, thereby mooting this post.)
I just read somewhere that Gmail’s chat is geared toward older computer users, age 30 and up. I guess that’s another reason I found Gmail appealing. 
Noted
- Official List of Gmail Emoticons
- A script for third-party graphical Gmail emoticons
- Another third party source for Gmail emoticons
Blog Posts about Gmail Emoticons
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Some of my favorites…
Pig :(:)
Monkey :(|)
Crab V.v.V
mustache :{
smily face:)
sad face
rock out\m/
shocked
grin