Single or multiple ; (Semicolons) are often used together with faces depicting embarrassment, for an added effect. Also, other characters may be added to indicate hands, similar to the Japanese emoticons; but usually they are only attached on the right. Example: -ㅅ-a (scratching one's head), 'ㅅ'b (Thumbs up), 'ㅅ'ㅗ (The finger)
In some cases, like ㅎ_ㅎ, the emoticon can mean an emotion even when it is not depicting a face of any specific emotion. Letters ㅎ and ㅋ are widely used in Korean internet as a sign of laughter (similar to the usage of "w" in Japanese Web)for example ㅋㅇㅋ, ㅎㅇㅎ, ㅋㅅㅋ, ㅋ-ㅋ, ㅎ_ㅎ; and so the emoticons using those letters as the eye component can be interpreted as a laughing face.
Also, ㅇㅈㄴ is a Korean version of Orz - although OTL is used more often- depicting a man kneeling down.
English-language anime forums adopted those emoticons that could be used with the standard ASCII characters available on western keyboards. Because of this, they are often called "anime style" emoticons in the English-speaking Internet. They have since seen use in more mainstream venues, including online gaming, instant-messaging, and other non-anime related forums. Emoticons such as <(^.^)>,<(^_^<),<(o_o<),<( -'.'- )>,<('.'-^),(.ㅅ.), which include the parentheses, mouth or nose, and arms (especially those represented by the inequality signs < or >) also are often referred to as "Kirbies" in reference to their likeness to Nintendo's video game character, Kirby. The parentheses are usually dropped when used in the English language context, and the underscore of the mouth may be extended as an intensifier, e.g. ^__________^ for very happy. People also use >< or : ). Usually on MSN, people use O.O or : ( "Screw you" is represented by a smiley showing middle finger(s) .!._(Ò_ó)_.!..
Exposure to both Western and East Asian style emoticons or emoji through web blogs, instant messaging, and forums featuring a blend of Western and Asian pop culture, has given rise to emoticons that have an upright viewing format. The parentheses are similarly dropped in the English language context and the emoticons only use alphanumeric characters and the most commonly used English punctuation marks. Emoticons such as -O-, -3-, -w-, '_', ;_;, T_T, :>, and .V., are used to convey mixed emotions that are more difficult to convey with traditional emoticons. Characters are sometimes added to emoticons to convey an anime or manga-styled sweat drop, for example: ^_^' or !>_<! or ^3^' or v3v; as well as: <@>_________<@>;; ;O; and *u*
The equal sign can also be used for closed, anime looking eyes, for example: =0=, =3=, =w=, =A=
There are also more faces along those lines like >o<; using the ; as a sweat mark, and the "o" as a mouth, and the inequality signs as the eyes, it shows stress, or slight confusion. The amount of emoticons that can be made are limitless, and all have their own meaning.
In Brazil, sometimes combining character (accent) are added to emoticons to represent eyebrows, like: ò_ó or ó_ò or õ_o or ù_u or o_Ô. They can also replace (or add) "=" or ":" by ">", example: >D or >=D or >P or >:P or >3 or >:3.
The Japanese language is usually encoded using double-byte character codes. As a result, there is a bigger variety of characters that can be used in emoticons, many of which cannot be reproduced in ASCII. Most kaomoji contain Cyrillic and other foreign letters to create even more complicated expressions analogous to ASCII art's level of complexity. To type such emoticons, the input editor that is used to type Japanese on a user's system has a dictionary of emoticons, after which the user simply types the Japanese word (or something close to it) that represents the desired emoticon to convert the input into such complicated emoticons. Such expressions are known as Shift JIS art.
Users of 2channel in particular have developed a wide variety of unique emoticons using obscure characters. Some have taken on a life of their own and become characters in their own right, like Mona.
Orz (also seen as Or2, on_, OTZ, OTL, STO, JTO, _no, ＿冂○, 囧rz, O7Z, _|7O, Sto, and Jto) is a Japanese emoticon representing a kneeling or bowing person, with the "o" being the head, the "r" being the arms and part of the body, and the "z" being part of the body and the legs. This stick figure represents failure and despair. It is also commonly used for representing a great admiration (sometimes with an overtone of sarcasm) for someone else's view or action.
It was first used in late 2002 at the forum on Techside, Japanese personal website. At the "Techside FAQ Forum" (TECHSIDE教えて君BBS(教えてBBS) ), a poster asked about a cable cover, typing "＿|￣|○" to show a cable and its cover. Others commented that it looked like a kneeling person, and the symbol became popular. These comments were soon deleted as they were considered off-topic. However, one of the first corresponding reactions can be found on the thread on , on December 23, 2002. By 2005, Orz spawned a subculture: blogs have been devoted to the emoticon, and URL shortening services have been named after it. In Taiwan, Orz is associated with the phrase "nice guy"–that is, the concept of males being rejected for a date by girls they are pursuing with a phrase like "You are a nice guy."
Orz should not be confused with m(_ _)m, which means an apology.
A portmanteau of "emotion" and "sound", an emotisound is a brief sound transmitted and played back during the viewing of a message, typically an IM message or e-mail message. The sound is intended to communicate an emotional subtext. Many instant messaging clients automatically trigger sound effects in response to specific emoticons.
Some services, such as MuzIcons, combine emoticons and Adobe Flash music player in a widget.
In 2004, The Trillian chat application introduced an feature called "emotiblips", which allows Trillian users to stream files to their instant message recipients "as the voice and video equivalent of an emoticon".
In 2007, MTV and Paramount Home Entertainment promoted the "emoticlip" as a form of viral marketing for the second season of the show "The Hills". The emoticlips were twelve short snippets of dialogue from the show, uploaded to YouTube, which the advertisers hoped would be distributed between web users as a way of expressing feelings in a similar manner to emoticons. The emoticlip concept is credited to the Bradley & Montgomery advertising firm, which hopes they would be widely adopted as "greeting cards that just happen to be selling something".
In 2008 an emotion-sequence animation tool, called FunIcons was created. The Adobe Flash and Java-based application allows users to create a short animation. Users can then email or save their own animations to use them on similar social utility applications.
In 2000 Despair, Inc. obtained a U.S. trademark registration for the "frowny" emoticon :-( when used on "greeting cards, posters and art prints." In 2001, they issued a satirical press release, announcing that they would sue Internet users who typed the frowny; the joke backfired and the company received a storm of protest when its mock release was posted at technology news website Slashdot. They subsequently issued another press release a month later in response to the reaction their claim had generated.
A number of patent applications have been filed on inventions that assist in communicating with emoticons. A few of these have issued as US patents. U.S. patent 6987991, for example, discloses a method developed in 2001 to send emoticons over a cell phone using a drop down menu. The stated advantage over the prior art was that the user saved on the number of keystrokes though this may not address the obviousness criteria.
In Finland, the emoticons :-), =), =(, :) and :( were trademarked in 2006 for use with various products and services. The emoticon :-) was also filed in 2006 and registered in 2008 as a European Community Trademark (CTM).