Emoticons have...emotions?

Lately I've noticed that different-style emoticons have different emotions...the happy is sometimes slap happy, sometimes sweet happy. For example: on oh say, Gaiaonline. com, the happy emoticon looks just absolutely devious. The one on my IM client (Adium) looks sweet and endearing.
Why are they all so different? Well, mostly it's probably that emotions aren't necessarily defined. Happy varies from person to person. And so, when the emoticons are invented the person's opinion on an emotion comes through in their final set.
So next time you see an emoticon, notice that it's probably different then the one on this or that site. Or...just ignore it. XP