You have it backwards, sir, :-) are the emoticons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons

IIRC "smileys" were what you got from fonts like Wingdings, and I believe those were short-lived. You could type :) and MS Word or Outlook, for example, would "helpfully" give you the Wingdings happy face, which would show up as a J for anyone who didn't have that font.

:-) and friends were "emoticons" for decades.