At long last, the day has come. After 3 weeks of nominations and another 3 weeks of voting, the polls are closed, the ballots have been counted, and Krissi001 and Mirz123 are here to announce the winners of the 2012 Emote Award.!

Before we get to the winners, though, we'd like to comment on a question that was raised during the voting process. There was some concern that a few of the "newcomers" actually posted their first emoticon before January 1, 2012.  In previous years, the Emote Awards were done on an erratic schedule, from a date in December to another date in December. Our goal this year was to get the awards on a full January 1 - December 31 calendar. As a result, there were a few newcomers that fell into the gray area between the last awards and the new January date. In the spirit of fairness, we allowed those couple of emoticonists to compete, since we did not feel it right to disqualify them simply because they fell inside that narrow window.

To see the original nominees list, click here ---> emotewatch.deviantart.com/jour…

With all of that said, let's get on with it. Here are the winners! Note that each winner will receive a special stamp and animated badge they can use on their profile page and/or journals!

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Best Animated Emoticonist:

With more than double the votes of the runner-up, the winner is...

Web5teR

Best Static Emoticonist:

This was a bit of a tighter race between the winner and the runner-up, but the award goes to...

Synfull

Best Chat Emoticonist:

A super-close race on this one, but the award goes to...

BlissfullySarcastic

Best Newcomer:

A very close race between the top-three voted, but in the end, the award goes to...

MerelyCubed

Best NaNoEmo Participant:

All of the nominees did well in the category-it was a close race. However, the award goes to...

Cmotes

Best Emoticon Group:

By an overwhelming number of votes, over double the second-place, the award goes to...

TheEMTC

Best Emoticon Tutorial:

With a very firm win, the award goes to...

Emoticon Project of the Year:

Gathering over 2/3 of the cast votes for this category, the award goes to...





_{Note that since projects are a collaborative effort, it is not viewed as a sole-deviation by the host, and therefore the "double-win" rule doesn't apply to this category.}

Best Emote Plz Account:

Lots of close races this year. The award in this category goes to...

Best Emoticon of the Year:

With nearly three-times the number of votes as the second-place in this category, the award goes to...

Best Emoticon-Art:

A close race again, but the award goes to...

Best Chat Emoticon:

This was such a close race between the top 4 contenders that only 1 vote pushed the winner over. The award goes to...

Emoticonist of the Year:

This was such a tight race between the winner and runner-up, but the award for the Emoticonist of the Year goes to...

Web5teR



_{A special thanks to Krissi001 for making the lovely awards!}

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We'd like to congratulation all the winners, as well as commend all the nominees for their amazing work through 2012.  Our community hit a bit of a low point, but it seems to be coming back strong. We look forward to seeing what the rest of 2013 brings!

A special chat event for the Emote Awards is being planned and will be announced in the next week or two.  Thank you everyone!

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Since being nominated for an Emote Award is an honor in itself, we both thought it would be nice if the nominees received a special badge they could display on their page.  If you were nominated in any category, feel free to grab these badges to show you were a competitor in the awards for 2012!