10 Yahoo Smileys I Miss The Most

Do you remember those good old days when we used to chat on Yahoo Messenger? I, for one, am permanently indebted to this crazy chat app for my typing speed!

There was a phase in my life when I used to be online on Yahoo Chat all through my waking hours. I had even installed a Yahoo Pingbox widget on my old blog's sidebar, so that my readers could ping me on Yahoo while they were visiting it! Planned an entire bloggers' meet in New Delhi via that Pingbox! What days!

Well, Yahoo discontinued that Pingbox in December 2012, and in fact, discontinued the entire Yahoo Messenger too in 2018, but you know what's the one thing that I miss the MOST about the Yahoo Messenger service? It's those cutely-animated smileys!

Yes, there are so many new smileys now, both on Facebook as well as my "smart" phone, but somehow, none of these new smileys have been able to replace some of my most used YAHOO smileys from those golden days!

Here's my list of the 10 Yahoo smileys I miss the most! I originally shared this list in May 2015, as a guest post for one of my blog buddies. A recent WhatsApp thread reminded me of it, so I decided to re-vamp it and publish it on my new blog now.

10 Yahoo Smileys I Miss The Most

1. Laughing :))

   

   One of the most commonly used Yahoo smileys! Sometimes, used in succession -- half-a-dozen :)) :)) :)) :)) :)) :)) one after the other -- for looong laughs, you know!

   Take a look at the smiley though. See how the upper jaw moves to give the impression of actually laughing? Try to laugh that way now. Go on, try it. Hold your lower jaw absolutely still and try to laugh moving only your upper jaw. Can you do it?

   Hahaha! You actually tried that, didn't you? :))

2. Tongue :P

   

   Oh! That was such a cuuuute tongue-face! It always reminded me of my cousin, Rishu, who was a toddler back then, and often made this particular face, with quite astonishing similarity.

   In fact, there was a time when :P had actually become a part of my REAL-LIFE vocabulary. I remember once telling someone on phone that - "Rishu was doing a :P"!

   Hehehe! :P

3. Blushing :">

   

   Look at those cheeks! Redder than the Grihshobha "sharam se laal huyi" column !!!

   This Yahoo Messenger smiley was especially handy when flirting with someone. At times, it was used in conjunction with :P, when, say you were chatting during your "drunk Kay" state (i.e. close to midnight), and you happened to make some really embarrassing typos and the other person went :)) on you!

   He he! :"> :P

4. Devil >:)

   

   I think the most I've used this smiley was during chats with 'M', a Reiki friend and ex-blogger, and also with a flirtatious classmate from school loooong ago, with whom I used to flirt back harder! >:)

   Well, there was a special kind of fun in online leg-pulling of your chat partner, just so you could make this smiley at him/her. Nothing could add that final punch to your ragging/flirting better than this purple smiley with an actual devil's laugh that always reminded me of Betaal's laugh (from the Vikram Aur Betaal show aired on DD National in 1985)!

   HAA HAA HAA HAA HAA HAA HAA! >:)

5. Angry X(

   

   This was usually your chat partner's reaction after you'd been pulling his/her leg for some time and had finally used that laughing purple devil on him/her! Although I mostly used it just to create my "angry young woman" image. (See all that smoke coming out of the ears?)
   

   I think the only times I really meant this smiley was when 'Sh', an old Reiki teacher and friend, used to "put me on hold" during Yahoo chats, and then just... disappear!

   Hmmmmppphhh! X(

6. ROTFL =))

   

   This was either used after a round of >:) and X( (i.e. the purple devil and anger) or just before a sequence of :"> and :P (i.e. blushing and tongue-face.)

   This is the one Yahoo smiley that I miss the most. Man! I think I've stopped laughing like that in real-life too now! I got to use it the most with 'Sh'. He said the funniest things at times. While I happened to be in MY "drunk Kay" state close to midnight only, HE used to be like that ALL THE TIME!

   ROTFL!!! =))

7. Waiting :-w

   

   I think I had to use THIS smiley ONLY during chats with 'Sh'!

   Didn't I just mention how he used to put people on hold and then disappear? This is what us poor "people" did while we were on hold... we drummed our fingers against our monitor screen... until he attended his distraction and remembered (or not) to return on chat!

   Sighhhh! :-w

8. Rolling Eyes 8-|

   

   Depending on the context in which it was used, this Yahoo Messenger emoticon could represent one of several things - impatience, exasperation, disbelief. It was, in fact, used by me quite commonly. I miss this one a lot.

   Hasn't anyone (Facebook or android) come up with a decent substitute for this? I actually have to write "[rolling eyes]" now, every time I want to use this smiley! [rolling eyes]

   See? 8-|

9. Confused :-/

   

   Chats used to be (still are) very confusing at times, and not just because of the typos. That's when this smiley came in handy back in the Yahoo Messenger days. It was so much easier to just type :-/ than ask "What do you mean?"

   I think this was another smiley I used the most during chats with 'Sh'. He used to share some heavy stuff at times. Even after all these years, I still haven't got a clue about some of that stuff!

   [scratching my head] :-/

10. Wave :-h

    

    And that's how we used to end our chat conversations back in "those" days! All nice and proper, with a goodbye wave! I miss this as much as I miss the ROTFL smiley! It's been so long since we waved proper goodbyes to our chat partners, hasn't it?

    At times, I still use the characters on gchat or WhatsApp or Facebook, even though they don't convert into the actual smiley. But, it's so good to find a Yahoo chat pro occasionally, who remembers what these characters meant!

    And that brings an end to my list of the 10 Yahoo smileys I miss the most! So, on this note, I must bid you goodbye! :-h

So, which of these old Yahoo emoticons do YOU miss the most?
Do you like the non-animated substitutes for some of these, that are available now on WhatsApp and Google Keyboard?

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