Semantics

[Momiji]

I have more fun making and using my own emotes. （ー‿ー）～☆

[Peegee]

I have more fun making and using my own emotes. （ー‿ー）～☆

that's cute! I like my pikachu one <(o'.'o)>

see it has the red circles!

[Meat Puppet]

Hey I think there’s nothing wrong with Jewish people just because I don’t want to live near them doesn’t mean I hate them

[Shoeberto]

Hey I think there’s nothing wrong with Jewish people just because I don’t want to live near them doesn’t mean I hate them

I was scrolling quickly over the rest of the thread thinking about saying something like this and then you went and did it for me. Good work!

[Rodarian]

If it's so simple then what is ^_^ ? or ^_^^_^_^ or even ^____________________________^ ?

It's a smiley!

Go play with your pokemon.

[aquatius]

In English Language I think "officially" smilies are like (: and emoticons are like but usually nobody gives a crap.

[Lawr]

I like the smiley the best. Emoticons are creepy.

Hey I think there’s nothing wrong with Jewish people just because I don’t want to live near them doesn’t mean I hate them

Hey I think there’s nothing wrong with Jewish people just because I don’t want to live near them doesn’t mean I hate them

I was scrolling quickly over the rest of the thread thinking about saying something like this and then you went and did it for me. Good work!

Racists, the lot of you!

[Bunny]

Emoticons are :) and :(.

Smilies are their graphical representations.


Sources:
Emoticon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Smiley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[blackmage_nuke]

It depends on whether you think the word is:
emot icon (Emotion icon) which is a picture to represent an emotion
or
emoti con (emotic convention) which is a convention generally accepted as representations of emotions, such as by text : )

I personally thought it was the second one before I read what people kept saying about icons