Well, they used to be same size like the 'wink' is now earlier on the forum [back when on noeman anyway], but it's the way the sequence of typed characters is recognised by the server. I mean, in theory ^/y could be set to insert upyours or :up-yours: could do the same if that was set.

Ummm, maybe that's a bad choice for a demonstration to a guy from TX with 11 weapons and an awful lot of ammo. Ah, wtf! He's about 10,000 miles away [up yours!].
Yeah, like you really NEED a 45 dude .....
This is one of ours: It's 'kenny', just change both ' for : which is how i typed it and our server knows to insert the gif.