[ClassyJacket]

Do you mean you use smileys like :) :( :P ?

Emotions were the little images you could place amongst text in MSN Messenger.

[Nition]

As far as I recall it was pretty common to call :-) etc emoticons back in the day. Like 1990s/early 2000s.

[mcpackieh]

Emoticons were originally and predominately text based ¯\_(-_-)_/¯