About

XD is an emoticon of a smiley face guffawing with its mouth open and eyes closed, which is commonly used to convey loud laughter in a similar vein to the use of the acronym LOL. On some discussion forums and imageboard communities, the use of the emoticon, along with its phonetic transcription ecks dee, have been met with negative reception and even stigmatized as a form of "shitposting".

Origin

The exact origin of the emoticon is unknown. The earliest Urban Dictionary^[2] entry for "XD" was submitted by user Johnson on March 29th, 2003, defining it as a "laughing face." Over the next 12 years, the submission gained over 9,600 up votes.

Spread

On December 23rd, 2003, Urban Dictionary^[5] user Serel submitted an entry for "ecks dee," defining it as a phonetic spelling of the XD emoticon. On March 19th, 2010, a Facebook^[1] page titled "For all those who hate the "xD" emoticon!" was launched. On September 5th, 2011, YouTuber PronunciationOrator uploaded a video titled "What does XD face mean?", describing the emoticon as a depiction of a "closed eyes smile" (shown below, left). On May 12th, 2012, YouTuber Not an Alternate Channel uploaded a video titled "Ecks Dee," featuring a Facebook comment using the XD emoticon (shown below, right).

On March 27th, 2013, League of Legends Forums^[4] member Tempname8956 submitted a thread proposing that the emoticons "XD" and "D:" be banned from multiplayer game chat. On January 16th, 2014, IGN Forums^[6] member RodHumble submitted a post claiming that people who use the XD face are "12 years old", "aspies", "forever alones", "bronies" or "betas." As of March 2015, the "XD" Interest page on Facebook^[3] has accumulated upwards of 348,000 likes.

Search Interest

External References