@MetalSamurai @AlisonW @carlrj @atomicpoet @fediversenews @quephird I started with Usenet in the 90's and I remember people using slashes and other forms of markup in ASCII for all kinds of emphasis. I even remember lots of <g> used for grin/joke. And it is amazing how this thread devolved into semantics instead of discussing the inability for technology to be expressive by design in the first place.