Why Emoticons
o/
welcome!
i like emoticons. this post attempts to explain why.
Universality
Emoticons, expecially those that use only ASCII charachters, will look nearly the same everywhere. You don't have to worry about an emoji conveying a vastly different message, or not showing up at all. Even on machines made decades apart, most common emoticons will not look significantly different.
Ease of use
Most traditional computers don't have an easy way to type emoji. Even if they do, it's often much less convienent than typing an equivelant emoticon.
Aesthetic
I can't like an say I don't enjoy the retro aesthetic. I regularly program in multiple 16-bit FORTH environments, and I own and use a cassette player. So if I have the option of two roughly equivelant things, I'll take the older option most of the time.
/gemlog/