Understanding smileys/emoticons

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Do you have a problem with this?

On a fairly regular basis I find myself having to copy a smiley's URL and paste it into the address bar so that I can read what it is supposed to represent. Not on this forum, because they're all fairly clear here.

I sometimes have to check, except for obvious ones.

It's faster to right-click the icon and select "view image" from the drop-down menu. Then the url appears in the address bar.

I actually make smilies... their intentions are all pretty clear to me.

Actually, I think one of the reasons I communicate and relate better to people over the internet is because people often use emoticons to indicate their mood (humour, sarcasm, annoyance, etc).

I can understand the emoticons much better than I can read the real-life equivalent on people's faces so I am less likely to misunderstand.

I suspect that even NT's have a problem figuring out emoticons.

Yes. Smiling, laughing, evil, sick and a few other obvious ones I can get easily. A lot of the others I have no idea and have to learn them. Many of them seem really obscure to me. Even the lightbulb one on WP which represents an idea (I think) doesn't look like a lightbulb to me and I had no idea what it was supposed to be, even when I realised it doesn't register properly because it just doesn't look like it to me.

Whether that is in any way an AS brain interpretation or just not the best graphics having been used I don't know.

Here is an example:

It is called "good vibes". I know what it means now, but the first time I saw it I couldn't tell just from looking at it. I think it's because in real life that is not an actual thing that happens when somebody is feeling good vibes. Whereas the rolling eyes smileys or blushing are actually what happens when you have those emotions.