According to Wikipedia…
An emoticon is a textual portrayal of a writer’s mood or facial expression. They are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text. Early emoticons go back to the 1800s and commonly arose when casual/humorous writing was common. The emoticons on the Internet can largely be traced back to a proposal by Scott Fahlman in a message of 19 September 1982.
Emoticons in WordPress
There’s a default set of emoticons that come with every install of wordpress and are located in the folder wp-includesimagessmilies. Before they will show in your blog posts, the emoticons must first be enabled within the admin panel located under Settings → Writing. Make sure the box “Convert emoticons” is checked.
Style your emoticons
You can style the emoticons using the following image class:
img.wp-smiley |
For example, remove the border around the emoticon and give it some space by adding the following code to your stylesheet:
img.wp-smiley { border: 0; padding: 0 2px; } |
Use your emoticons
The following chart is the text/code needed to produce the corresponding smiley/emoticon. 
View source (or copy-able text 
)
Change your emoticons
So enough fun with the boring ol’ default emoticons, you can change them to anything you want! There are a couple ways to do this.. Personally, I prefer to just change them out myself rather than use yet another plugin But there are plugins that will do it as well.
If you want to change out the default emoticons yourself, first backup the original ones! All you have to do is replace the old emoticons with your new ones making sure to name the new ones the same name as the corresponding default ones. Be sure and keep copies of the emoticons you are using because they will be replaced if you upgrade your blog automatically via plugin or admin panel on version 2.7 and up.
WordPress Emoticon Plugins
- If you would rather use a plugin to do change them, here are a few that I found:
- Tango Smileys Extended – disables the built-in WordPress smileys and extends the number of available smileys from 18 to 202.
- Smilies Themer – allows you to use smilies (emoticons) themes (or packs) to replace the wordpress default ones
- Smiley Switcher – With this plugin you can choose a smiley pack from the settings / options in admin or simply choose your own smiley pack directory.
Download New Emoticons
- Find all sorts of different emoticons at the following links…
- Aqua Smilies – created for WordPress
- White Emoticons Pack – created for WordPress
- Xpressions Emoticon Pack – created for WordPress, 4 different color choices
- Animated Chinese Emoticons – Animated emoticons and plugin
- 12 Emoticon Packs – 12 free super cute emoticon packs
- GreenSmilies
- Smileygarden
- World of Smilies
- TechFaq – Over 6000 completely free emoticons.
Learn more…
- Using Smilies – WordPress Codex
- Add Smilies To Your WordPress Blog with Smilies Themer – WordPress Hacks
- The Art of Smilies in WordPress Blogs – Lorelle on WordPress
:lol: 
8) 
Ohhh, thanks for the links!
I love your design style of this blog. Inspiring.
Wonderful post, a very informative one as I see it.
Any idea how to make custom emoticon packs? I’d appreciate it very much if you could post a tutorial on this. 
long live the smiley
I’m so confused. I can’t figure out how to get this plugin to work. I see some commenters have used them as comment replies, but I don’t see any smilies to click on.
I love Emoticons
im new to this can someone show me how to install the emoticons. also, just i’m finding it annoying that i cant get the plugins to work, is it really that difficult.
Cool! I’m going to put alien emoticons on my blog, lol.
.-= Manny Pacquiao´s last blog ..Manny Pacquiao Defeats Ricky Hatton =-.
i love it!
Great list of EMO , thx for providing downloading and emo list.
Hi Dani ! I see this emoticons is good suit for your blog
It will be nice to use emoticons like we have in msn messenger (yes, they are big, but very funny
Is there possibility to upload big custom emoticons (50×50 size or more) ?
Thank youu…
I would put smileys for my blog.
.-= Korean Drama´s last blog ..Lee Jun Ki, Duta Pariwisata Korea =-.
Hey dani,
thanks for the post. I have changed my emoticons and I´m very happy about this. it looks really better with the new emoticons.
tahnk a lot!
Very good looking site with a lot of information.I love it.Will revisit it soon.
Cheers
Thanks for the post, i enjoyed reading it. blogging is not as easy as many think it is, it’s hardwork. any how thanks.
hey, nice post, thank you
Thanks for the great links!!!
.-= Smileys´s last blog ..Smiley Face Clip Art – 10,000 Smileys for Free =-.
RE: Jim
Smileys are awsome!!!
.-= Stacy´s last blog ..Smiley Face Symbols =-.
hanks for the links, emoticon look great.
.-= Proefabonnement´s last blog ..HP/De Tijd =-.
These look very awsome, going to put them on my blog.
.-= General Blog´s last blog ..Day trader Versus Investor =-.
Who doesn’t love smileys.