What Web Men Need, Part One

What do these web men need? (Thank you Sergio Leone)

Apparently, they need emoticons!

(Not all, not all, but some– and you know who you are)

They can’t seem to tell one another how they “feel” without them.

I see them used for every damn mundane thing: E.g.:

“Thanks for visiting. ” (yellowystupidthingy).

Sometimes, three yellowstupidthingies in a row!!

It feels like a guy whose shakes your hand and won’t let go.

Am I being unreasonable?

Do I need an EMOTICON RAGE management program?  Is it covered by insurance?

Part Two, tomorrow.

©Pat Coakley 2008

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

14 Replies to “What Web Men Need, Part One”

  1. Web men need Web mistresses!
    Of course.
    Mistresses in charge of language arts.

    We only speak one language in this place and still, some people struggle to put a sentence together in an original way.
    Not you or your readers…….

    Do we even know what we say after we’ve said it.
    Have a nice day.
    Take care.
    Talk to you soon.
    And my all time favorite knee jerker, NO PROBLEM!

    Two negatives in a two word sentence.
    Can’t be a good thing. I still like, ” You’re Welcome “. Or if it’s really called for , I’m a sucker for a genuine ” My Pleasure “.

    Where’s that management program being given, maybe I’ll take it with you.

  2. PS- damn, I hate when I hit the overeager Submit Comment button too soon.

    Great Great Photo Image!!! Sergio or no, it’s you behind the lens.

  3. BL: I have to admit I find it more annoying when men use them. I use that “take care” line so I’m have that squirmy feeling that PlanetRoss is experiencing right now.

    PR: You hilarious yellowdiscsmiley webman you. “Must find shelter, must find shelter”. No where to run. No where to run. Your trail is all over the damn net. You and pomeroy!! It was like an orgy. Except here, which is nice. You respect a mad dog when you find her.
    “I feel a storm coming..” Is there an emoticon for “I have a bad feeling about this”? Wait! Don’t answer that. The words conveyed things precisely!!

  4. I make a motion to extend this to non-web men. If I may cheerfully generalize, sometimes it would be sooooooooooooooooooooooooo grand if some men could accompany their “sure” or “yup” with an emoticon.

    You have a nice day now, and let’s do lunch.

    Oh, and by all means, take care.

  5. Haha… poor PR. I feel an emoticon is required on this comments page, just so we remember what they look like before they become extinct. :-)

  6. you are absolutely too wonderfully tickling the snapping turtle so so glad to have stumbled here, thankyou for making me belly laugh

  7. Makes me wonder whatever happened to words? Can’t we just say how we feel? Make a complete sentence anymore? Laziness. And lack of genuine concern.

    Emoticons keep people at arm’s length. And that seems to be what people want these days . . .

  8. In reverse order: Sweetiegirlz! I love this. A campaign by golly. I’m controversial?? Thank God. My reputation is so tame here in my village.

    Tysdaddy: Keeping people at an arm’s length…hmmm…now, that is very interesting and I hadn’t thought of it that way. But, you may be on to something.

    Tipota, I’d even use emotiocons if I could sound so refreshingly original in every comment as you do! I’m be visiting you today.

    Nava: you are on to something here that I have to watch in my own text only as well as verbal communication: not resorting to one size fits all blurbs. I think emoticons do tend to trivialize whatever communication goes before it, even if it is meant to be used as revelation tool.

    Sanity..Phew, yourself. I just posted Part II and am donning that Mushroom Helmet from several days ago!

    Epicurienne: Do you know what is hilarious??? Several days ago, maybe a week, I tried to post emotiocons on PlanetRoss’s site. I looked up how to do it, did it just the way they said and NOTHING!! I tried and tried. Seriously, I wasted about a half hour. Then, I went to his site and just wrote jibberish, figuring he’d know what I was up to. One of the things actually turned into a emoticon on his site! But, now that you mention it, I remember I did turn off emotiocons on my site!! I had forgotten. Duh. Duh. Duh. I was laughing. Not only do I hate them, I said to myself. I can’t do them either!

  9. Pat, I just spent ages writing a comment to you about the above, then hit the wrong key and lost it all. Bummer.
    Anyway, I love that I’m not the only one who can’t make emoticons work. How about adopting me?? I’m in the process of adopting Natcrack and arranging her marriage to PhlanetRoss with an H. (Well, maybe not the last part but could well work so why not?) In the meantime, PR is tuning in to ProzachwithanH so we should soon see him moving away from the emoticons. We could be one happy family with a load of extinguishers for when Razz comes for lunch. Sweetiegirlz can keep us real, BonnieL can paint our family fortune paintings, everyone can contribute something to our family and, if they’re mental enough, join us! Whaddya think?

  10. My automatic pilot response, “awesome” is one I said I’d NEVER use because the Grand Canyon is awesome not the mundane way we’ve come to use that word.
    Every time I say it I cringe inside!
    Have a nice day is automatic pilot, too. Sheesh….

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