Neha Tiwari Pvt. Ltd.

This time next week I will be sitting at a desk in my spankin’ new cube, on my work computer at Revision 3. Excuse me for a moment while I totally freak out!

Although I am very excited, I am starting to have  some of the first day jitters. It’s a comfort already knowing most of the people I will be working with, but I am all grown-up now. Allow me to explain; the last time I ever worked with these folks I was a naive 19 year old intern. Now, I’ll be a full-fledged producer. I know I have the skills and I can’t say how psyched I am to be working with such talented people–from Patrick Norton, Jess Corbin, Prager and Sarah Lane–that’s what I call and all-star company!

I just hope that I can deliver. Even when I went into my job at CNET, I felt a little anxious. I was a college kid then, and it was my first real gig so that was in some sense justified. I’m not nearly as nervous this time around, but there is still stuff to do.  Little things like getting used to the commute, finding out where to eat lunch, and getting my sleep schedule back on track. I’m guessing my usual 12 hours of sleep is going to be cut into—significantly. At CNET, I was lucky to get like 6 hours, if that. Basically, moving my life to what it was before I took my 2 month hiatus in one week. A daunting task, but so necessary.

I am looking forward to working again. I feel that I am one of the lucky people, meaning that I actually love what I do and find it to be exhilarating. Getting into the swing of working, rejoining the web 2.0 happy hour circuit…man I can’t wait! But, I still have cold feet and one week to warm them up. Here I go…

This week, the emoticon turned 25, which is kind of bizarre to me. I mean, Professor Fahlman, are you trying to tell me that the horizontal smiley face is older than the Apple Lisa, the original Windows OS, and the person writing this blog?

In any case, it’s interesting to think about how emoticons have changed the way we communicate online. Without a “smiley” at the end of some of my chat dialogs, I would come across as a real B, I’m sure. Plus where would online sarcasm be without a little *wink* ;) here and there? Emoticons truly represent us when our facial expressions cannot online. I don’t think there will ever be a replacement to person-to-person contact, but these little guys aide the possibility.

It’s also pretty amazing to see how many emoticons there are available in most chat clients. I use Trillian, and there are like hundreds of them, some not even being in smiley form. Those come in handy especially for those instances when I need to send someone a car icon for no real reason in the middle of a chat…which happens never. The new emoticons have become quite fanciful, barring unnecessarily ridiculous, but I still very much appreciate the original smileys. Those almost never get lost in chat client translation [whereas an angel icon turns into a collection of symbols like 0;-}<], and also transfer my feelings on the web.

In an anthropological sense, seeing that even back in the 80s the conveying of emotions was a valid concern reveals the birth of social networking today. That is, the need to identify a person behind the screen. A human behind the machine, sharing and interacting all in real time. Chatting without colon-dash-end parentheses would be rather boring and dry. Additionally, there would be no such thing as an emoticon war. Wait…we all do that, right?

The emoticon: representing the human condition on the internets since 1982. Happy birthday, dear friend <3. Oh, and that “less than three” is a heart, for the laymen.

When we first met, there were definite sparks. This colorful guy was the type of person that would change his appearance on the drop of a dime, knew my favorite songs, and even got along with most of my friends. But things changed as someone better came along. He was educated, simple, and had some backbone. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t change certain things about him. As a constellation, he promised to let me add things to his personality, making him more complete.

The first flashy gentlemen I was referring to is my dear friend Myspace. The second, who swept me off my feet, is none other than Mr. Facebook. I’ve been with Myspace longer than Facebook, but I can’t help but be a little disenchanted by it. This parallel or personification is justified; being with a social network is a type of relationship. In this case, there are two “guys” vying for the users attention.

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