You're probably right about the terminology being around for a while, but I think most people just called them smileys (i.e. ;) would be called a "winking smiley"). I remember seeing the term used maybe in the early- or mid-90s either on a BBS or Usenet and thinking "Ah, that's what they're called" and as a nerd being annoyed that nobody used that term colloquially.

I completely forgot about "J" and the discourse it causes amongst my friend group.

Microsoft Office used Wingdings, but forums (based on e.g. phpBB) or IMs would replace :) with an image.

> short-lived

Outlook was doing this even 3-4 years ago.

3-4 years ago I hope it was actual emojis, and not Wingdings.

It was Wingdings.

But they do use Unicode emojis now.