show some emotion

Whoa! My feature on Taiwanese emoticon usage habits made it to the front page!

Smilies are so 1990s. Emoticons have evolved to another level in Taiwan after users started making their own animated GIF files and swapping them through chat programs such as the popular MSN Messenger.

To give you a taste of Taiwanese emoticon (ab)use in action, take a look at a screencapture of a recent IM conversation I had, username blurred.