[georgemcbay]

I've been using "emoticons" for quite a long time (1980s) and to me :\ means basically what bellerocky described... you might be sad, or you might be happy, but basically you're just kind of confused.

In any case, there may be a generational component to this, or it might even be "regional", though the regions would be more about which forums, etc you hang out on rather than a geographical region.

[xorcist]

Agreed. I have always read it as "meh" (closely related to "shrug" with asterisks), however I could agree with "what" as well. It's definitely not sad though.