Published by: Toddler Wooden Bed. What are MSN emoticons or smileys? An emoticon, or smiley, is actually a sequence of ordinary characters existing on each computer keyboard. They are used in different forms of communication involving the computer, such as: email and instant messages. Smiling symbols were first introduced as MSN emoticons but they are available on Yahoo! too for instance. The smiling faces represent a substitute for the face-to-face casual encouraging smile, but depending on the context other meanings can be conveyed.

Yahoo, Google and MSN offer lists with emoticons to be used in conversations or in emails, and all the symbols turn into real icons once they are selected and integrated in the message. These emoticons graphically express an emotion through an icon.

Hence the name emoticon. Whether MSN emoticons or symbols belonging to another provider, they truly make online communication more pleasant. The idea of using these symbols is to emphasize the writer’s feelings, emotions and, also, to do it in a funny way.

Is there any difference between smileys and emoticons? Europeans usually call them emoticons, while Americans tend to call the same things smileys. Anyway, messenger users often call them MSN emoticons, MSN smileys or Yahoo smileys. Lots of sites now provide the chance to download such free symbols and have them within reach when in an online conversation.

MSN messenger gives its users some free emoticons but it also allows you to use your own custom MSN emoticons. Lots of these symbols are the results of the fans’ imaginative creativity and have been made available for public use.

The custom MSN emoticons feature enables you to use animated emoticons up to 50×50 pixels in size. At My Emoticons, for instance, these icons are divided into romance, girlie, bad boys, moody and other categories. They have even come up with adult emoticons and sex smilies, which, though not for everybody, are still terribly funny.

There is a tag for every MSN emoticon necessary for item generation. The simplest example is a smiley face, which consists of a colon and a right-hand bracket. The use of the opposite bracket will make the smiley sad or desolate. Many other emoticons come with similar tags, and it’s possible to remember the majority of such basic emotion tags relatively quickly. For the more difficult to remember, use the drop down menu included in the chat window. Here you can select the emoticon directly by clicking with the mouse.