Emoticons/smilies and such do emerged for the very reason you say, disambiguation of things that could be taken out of context in mail form.
Note that this disambiguation does not necessarily mean "making less ambiguous".
A smiley could also mean "make what I say more ambiguous, because I mean it in an ambiguous way (e.g half joking)".
So, it's only disambiguation in a meta-level: making what should be ambiguous more ambiguous, and what should be taken literally more literal.
>Smilies are great for disambiguation, as people have some innate tendency to assume the most negative interpretation of a comment online; look at the culture of manufactured outrage in the U.S. over absurd interpretation of what people say in the public space.
I think "manufactured" is the key word here (that and hypocrisy).
People used to be more vigilant about that kind of hypocrisy, but only if it's by people on the right (i.e a strict republican "man of god" that's caught red-handed with a prostitute, not on the "left", e.g a blog post in the lines of "Booth babes at a tech expo, that is so sexist" by someone who's idea of fun is Hooters).
Note that this disambiguation does not necessarily mean "making less ambiguous".
A smiley could also mean "make what I say more ambiguous, because I mean it in an ambiguous way (e.g half joking)".
So, it's only disambiguation in a meta-level: making what should be ambiguous more ambiguous, and what should be taken literally more literal.
>Smilies are great for disambiguation, as people have some innate tendency to assume the most negative interpretation of a comment online; look at the culture of manufactured outrage in the U.S. over absurd interpretation of what people say in the public space.
I think "manufactured" is the key word here (that and hypocrisy).
People used to be more vigilant about that kind of hypocrisy, but only if it's by people on the right (i.e a strict republican "man of god" that's caught red-handed with a prostitute, not on the "left", e.g a blog post in the lines of "Booth babes at a tech expo, that is so sexist" by someone who's idea of fun is Hooters).