Emoticon

Iconic shorthand used on messageboards. Has evolved beyond the simple use of 'smilies' to express emotion or add cues to the author's intent. Many boards maintain a large collection of stock and customized images and can give each icon a custom name to invoke the appropriate graphic. Since the early forms and EZBoard convention called for emoticons to begin with the semi-colon ':', some posters choose to use a shorthand to create their own metaphors such as

:cactus
:laughingbluefucker
:happylama

Occasionally entire posts, threads and characters will use nothing but emoticons to communicate ( i.e. Captain Purgative )