The Emoticon Gospel

We know Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. But emotions were running high that entire week.

Last summer, RadioShack, the sponsor of Lance Armstrong's Tour de France bicycle team, introduced a series of humorous commercials featuring the cycling legend. In one, Armstrong, dubbed RadioShack's "Chief Mobility Officer," is mounted on a stationary bicycle spinning the cranks rapidly and talking to a company computer geek named Alphonse.

Lance speaks to Alphonse authoritatively, directing that "From now on, no man over the age of 30 will ever use emoticons - no colons, parentheses, smiley faces. No fancy bracketed mustaches, no semicolon hot winks."

Alphonse's inane response and the ensuing dialog between the two make for a clever ad. (See the commercial at trendhunter.com/trends/lance-armstrong-radioshack.) But Armstrong's directive that no emoticons shall be used by a man over 30 suggests that the symbols are silly, trivial and childish.

Symbols for emotion have been around a long time

Emoticons are little graphic representations of faces showing various expressions. Because...