:) vs ^_^

The usual NichiBei “Never the Twain” stuff…..

As a child growing up in Japan, Yuki was fascinated by pictures of American celebrities.
“Their smiles looked strange to me,” Yuki told LiveScience. “They opened their mouths too widely, and raised the corners of their mouths in an exaggerated way.”
–Well, DUH. No one smiles like that in real life – those are Hollywood smiles, huge fake grins for the camera.

For example, the American subjects rated smiling emoticons with sad-looking eyes as happier than the Japanese subjects did.
–Who decided the eyes were “sad-looking”?

Japanese kaomoji are far more elaborate than American ones anyway, and if I were to hypothesise any nonsense theory, I’d say it was due as much to Japanese not wanting to crane their necks at a 90-degree angle to see the smile.

Where was this research published, and how did LiveScience find out? I have the feeling it was deliberately aimed at a US market myself….

People think too much of smallest things and too many arm chair psychologists. There are many people in this world where if you do something nice for them, they will be happy and smile but not change eye expressions. Then there are other times when you see a friend and your glad to see them so you do very friendly smile and eyes change…it doesn’t mean other smile is fake but just not as strong to change eye. Also, why the focus on only Japan with the emoticon? I know rest of Asia uses “^_^” type emoticons in general…and funny thing is that emoticon was actually used first in States rather than Asia, before Japan even had internet…they weren’t even first in Asia to have internet as either military or civilian use (China/Taipei). No one can probably say invented but read book internet beginnings and emoticons.

Anyway, I think Asians use ^_^ type emoticon more because to distinguish from western type “round eyes” with squinted thin eyes. Maybe they focus on Japan more because Japanese have smallest eyes in Asia (not trying to be stereotypical but true in my humble experience)?

hmmmm my theory was a non-psychological one….i just assumed it was easier to type ^^ on a japanese keyboard rather than = because on the japanese keyboard you have to press shift to get the = and on western keyboards the = is easier to type than ^^ because shift is needed for ^^ on western keyboards…
i thought it was out of convenience rather than something psychological

I don’t know how accurate this is. Personally, I only used for about six monthes in high school. After that, I always used ^_^ and have been using it ever since. It’s easier to read, because it’s horizontal, it looks happier (to me, and I’m a through and through American), and seems more expressive. For example, are there American equivalents to these expressions? o_0 -_- ^_^; ^_~ I think not. Yet these are the ones I see most often on the internet, at ENGLISH speaking sites.

Simple, typing two characters and expressing basically 3 to 4 mood levels just does the job…

Hmm…interesting theory…maybe I should start looking at people around me with open eyes >-)

The ethnocentrism (largely biased against westerners and Americans in particular) in some of the comments here is tiresome. People always try to make too much of the littlest thing and I’m certain this is no different. And if you’re going to reach a negative conclusion about a culture, it’s safe to deride Americans because picking on the Japanese would be “racist”.

While I can’t say for certain why the emoticons are different, I’m sure it has little to do with how emotions are read and expressed in real life and everything to do with preferred methods of iconic representation (particularly in a culture that has animation with huge, over-sized eyes and tiny mouths, what would one expect the iconic expressions to look like?) which are built culturally (not hard-wired) and keyboard layout/typing variations.