Has there ever been a study from like an anthropologist/evolutionary biologist or something about why the :) smiley won out over the =) smiley? I used to be a =) guy back in the day, but over time felt pressured to switch to :) because everyone else was using it. Now, whenever I see someone use =) I just assume they're a boomer or something.

[–] Digestive_Biscuit 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've never thought about that. Could it be because :) became the shortcut for emoji?

[–] supremeloser@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago

It came before emojis/a shortcut for them. I would think it's from T9 keyboards. If you wanted any of those types of characters, it was a cycle of a single button and : comes before =, so doing : ) was a lot less button presses than = )