At what point did the smiley face reverse? It seems anyone under 24-ish uses (: where as I know it as :)

Many services will auto-translate :) into something else, like a colourful unicode icon. If you prefer to keep your smiley looking like just a smiley, (: is an effective workaround.

There's also an upside-down emoji smiley with its own distinct mood. Hopefully services don't start translating (: into that, they're used quite differently!

https://blog.emojipedia.org/emojiology-upside-down-face/

> tac "(:"

> :)

I don't think I've ever seen anyone using (:, and I'm a bit younger than 24-ish :)

I remember (: being used by left-handed in the late '90s, but maybe it was just the people I knew that used it for that reason.

And when did the nose fall off too?

Nose does not carry any facial expression information, so there is no need for it.

I blame reddit for this one. :^) needs to be escaped for else the mouth floats away.

:-) was the standard smiley-with-nose, :^) was a lot rarer

IMO monospace fonts can make the nose look ridiculous, but for other fonts I leave it in so the face is easier to read as a face.

being slightly younger than you, i can not but envy you: i have done zero projects or had fun like you have had. hmm.

Envy = Desire, I'm sure you'll do similar side-projects soon!

Sounds like you've still got some time to do some projects for fun and be like him?