• themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      this is true but it doesn’t explain why;

      this is the case because IM clients will often put a colon between the username and the message, so simply writing ) gives you “username : )”. it then escaped simple IM clients and now the russosphere uses it even in the absence of the colon.

      • Axiochus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, it’s one of my favorite little historical developments on the internet. A totally local convention that made perfect sense in the context of mIRC and similar things, yet persisted as an independent meaningful token.

        • 📛Maven@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          Did it make sense with mIRC? IRC clients wrap the name in angle-brackets, not a colon. This sounds more like AIM.

          • Axiochus@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I remember it with mIRC, but it might have been a false memory, you’re right! Then again, it might have been some custom styling that enabled it?

            Anyway, it definitely is the case for stuff like ICQ (I double-checked 😺).