Tuesday, July 19, 2011

What's the emoticon for schadenfreude?*

Because I am so darn ecstatic over the Murdoch empire debacle, words are no longer enough. But that's hardly the only Schadenfreude-inducing story in the news these days. There's the J-Lo/Marc Anthony divorce announcement, just months after this smoldering display. The dismal box results of the Sarah Palin bio-pic, The Undefeated. The dumping and dissing of Hugh Heffner by a woman young enough to be his great grand daughter. The news that one of Charlie Sheen's Goddesses just took the first bus back to Olympus. Then there's the debt ceiling debacle. Mostly schaden, (sorrow), but hard to overlook the freude (joy) of watching congress get what it deserves, the lowest approval rates EVAH! (Take that, Eric Cantor, you obstructionist, egomaniacal little twit). All of which leads me to conclude that schadenfreude needs to be added to the emoticon vocabulary ASAP. I've provided a few design suggestions below.

;-]

[:>)

(:^’

:-[

{:–D

(:–/

(:-*



* Schadenfreude (sorrow/joy) is a German word for taking pleasure in the pain/suffering/misery/abject humiliation of others.

Check out wikipedia's emoticon chart. At the risk of sounding politically incorrect to the max, I have to say the East Asian ones are totally inscrutable.

2 comments:

IanB said...

I vote for this one {:-D.

As in "Just heard that preferred candidate has accepted another contract, so I am back in contention. Soo sorry for agent... not!"

IanB said...

Important to include the 4th character - eyebrows - in tension with the mouth / eyes, don't you think?