Smiley

Smiley is a symbol that represents a smiling face, used to convey happiness, friendliness, or lightheartedness in written communication. The term can refer to a text-based emoticon composed of ASCII punctuation, or to a graphical emoji image, and it may also denote the iconic yellow smiley face used in branding and media.

Emoticons are created from punctuation marks typed in a line of text. The most famous form is :-) or :), and many variants exist to indicate different emotions. The practice began in the early days of online communities; in 1982, Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist Scott Fahlman proposed using :-) to mark humorous posts, a suggestion that helped popularize emoticons.

Emoji are pictorial symbols encoded as characters in the Unicode standard. They originated in Japan in the late 1990s, with sets designed for mobile phones, and spread globally through smartphones and messaging platforms. Unicode now includes thousands of emoji, including several smiling faces such as Grinning Face (U+1F600) and Smiling Face with Open Mouth (U+1F603). In contrast to emoticons, emoji are images rather than arrangements of punctuation.

The most famous instance of the smiley as a branded symbol predates digital communication. The yellow Smiley design was created by Harvey Ball in 1963 for a greeting card company and later became a widely licensed icon. In the 1970s, Franklin Loufrani founded the Smiley World brand, using the symbol in a global licensing program that persists in various products and media.

Today, smileys appear in everyday digital communication across platforms and cultures, shaping tone and intent. They range from simple ASCII sequences to complex emoji, and their meanings can vary with context and cultural expectations.