I resemble Ronald Reagan. [emoticon]

[portia_yang]

There is an emoticon of 7 :^), which means "I resemble Ronald Reagan". I just wonder what its implied meaning is. Does it mean "My hairstyle is as cute as Reagan's" or something else?
Thanks a lot for your kind help.

 

[Keith Bradford]

My god, what a horrid thought! It might mean anything from "I have Altzheimer's" to "I once acted in a film with a chimpanzee". Without more context it's impossible to tell, but the emoticon looks more like Tintin. I think it's a joke.

 

[JustKate]

Yes, it's just a joke, partly based on Reagan. The "7" is supposed to resemble his hair, and the ) is supposed to resemble his smile. But what it really is is a joke on the practice of inventing silly emoticons, and in that sense, I actually think it's pretty funny.

 

[portia_yang]

My god, what a horrid thought! It might mean anything from "I have Altzheimer's" to "I once acted in a film with a chimpanzee". Without more context it's impossible to tell, but the emoticon looks more like Tintin. I think it's a joke.

Thank you very much for your kind reply. the context is as follow:

All over the country these days, electronic mail messages are concluding with this odd little punctuation sequence or one of its many variants, like :-( .
These are “smileys,” so-called because when you tilt your head to the left they look like little faces with a colon for eyes and a hyphen for a nose. Thus when a message ends , it means “just kidding.” If it ends :-(, it means “I’m depressed.” If it ends 7 :^), it means “I resemble Ronald Reagan.”

In fact, I have looked up the icon on the net and found its definition "show Reagan's hairstyle with accentuated part". What I didn't understand is why people use an icon to show Reagan's hairstyle and in what situation they use this icon.

Thanks to your explanation, now I know it's only a way to show our feeling on funny things.

 

[portia_yang]

To Justkate:

Now, I got it. thanks a lot for your kind and clear reply. Best wishes!