Smileys, short combinations of characters sometimes placed at the end of e- mail messages, are the online equivalent of body language. Beside the many smiley lists available on BBSes, two new books explore the emoticon phenomenon. The sharply laid-out Smileys has over 650 emoticons compiled by e-mail jockey David Sanderson, ranging from the standard smiley :-), to Zippy the Pinhead - >=:-)X
Smileys also has tips on smiley etiquette and a "smiley fun" section. The second offering, Niko (Smile )The Smiley Collection, is a showcase of 200 smileys gleaned from Japanese BBSes by Tota Enomoto. The larger character set used in Japanese-language e-mail allows for plenty of subtle variation. Niko is written in Nihongo, but the category descriptions, such as "smile" (_), "boo " \(o)/, "panic" (o;),"what?" (?_?), and "jesus " (*_*), are in English.
The weirder categories such as "whipping-loving severity" were probably culled from Japanese S&M afficionado BBSes. (Editor's Note - see Wired magazine issue 1.5 p100 for examples of Japanese-character smileys.)
The best smileys in Niko are simple, such as the zoo animals. Others look like a bad burst of static. Niko even has a few smiley postcards you can use to confuse your snail-mail friends. - Mark Frauenfelder
Niko The Smiley Collection, by Tota Enomoto, US$10, Shoeisha Sales Dept., Kitaaoyama Honda Bldg. 3-10-18 Kitaaoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107, Japan. Smileys, by David Sanderson, US$5.95, O'Reilly & Associates: (800) 998 9938, +1 (707) 829 0515.
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