I'd hate the emoticon if not for the fact that my personal hero Vladimir Nabokov pretty much invented them. In response to a question he found tedious, Nabokov wrote: "I often think there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile — some sort of concave mark, a supine round bracket, which I would now like to trace in reply to your question." He said that in 1959.

Surely he did not realize the bouncing, screaming, animated smileys of the future, less than 40 years later. But the emoticon's prevalence in online culture has its good points as well: for example, this amazing collection of bunny emoticons by Wang Momo, a Chinese animation student. Called Tuzki, these cute rabbits have taken China by storm, and she's actually able to eke out an income based on their popularity. Good for her, though there's a depressing lack of vomiting Goatse.cx Tuzkis, I think.

Tuzki [Start Drawing]