Gesture in the on-line world

In many ways gesture will translate into the on-line world. I use emoticons such as :) for happy :( for sad ^^ happy o.O puzzled, and so on. Although, in many ways, these motions do not mean the exact same thing to everyone and it leave a lot of room for someone to misconstrue your message. You can also indicate gesture with :: or * such as ::smacks forehead:: or *grins like a goof* Gesture looses some meaning once it is taken from the visual realm, even in print, explanations of gesture just don't cut it sometimes. But for a generation that is living primarily on-line, I think we are handling the transition quite well ;) <-- winking