Wednesday, September 19th, 2007...10:55 pm
:-) Digital Smiley Face Turns 25
Everyone has used the smiley face at one point or another, but do you know how its use started?
Twenty-five years ago a Carnegie Mellon University professor named Scott E. Fahlman sent a message proposing the use of a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis as a joke marker. It is the earliest recorded use of the smiley face, which has since become ubiquitous with online communication.
Love them or hate them, emoticons do provide a quick and easy way to show emotion in an otherwise detached medium.
Fahlman posted the emoticon in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly.
“I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-),” wrote Fahlman. “Read it sideways.”
The suggestion gave computer users a way to convey humor or positive feelings with a smile — or the opposite sentiments by reversing the parenthesis to form a frown.
Carnegie Mellon said Fahlman’s smileys spread from its campus to other universities, then businesses and eventually around the world as the Internet gained popularity. (source)
23 Comments
September 21st, 2007 at 2:44 pm
[...] Digital Smiley Face Turns 25 [...]
September 21st, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Woo.. Nice one! Now I knew where the smiley came from.
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:42 am
nice, pity he did not trade mark it
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:42 am
pity he did not trade mark it
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:01 am
Oh, thanks for this info! He is? I guess, he just deserves the credit. I think, got to feature him in my site as well. I love emoticons! We have to acknowledge the one who discovererd it! Y not?
http://www.writinerary.com
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:46 am
Had no idea it was this old. This predates the public use of the Internet by many years. IMAO
Funny how people now leave out the nose!
September 26th, 2007 at 5:22 am
I just cant believe this that smiley was this much old. Thank you for informing us about this amazing information.
September 30th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
[...] clipped from thewrongadvices.com [...]
October 2nd, 2007 at 5:34 pm
This is interesting. I don’t know the history of Digital Smiley but I know about Graphic Smileys history.
It’s just so fun and the net will be a pitch black if their is no invention of smiley to colorize the web page.
Thanks for sharing.
October 4th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Love em or hate em, sometimes they’re the only way for a person to know your intent when communicating in text. I am fairly sarcastic, but sometimes people don’t get your sarcasm when they can’t see your facial expression or hear your delivery.
October 7th, 2007 at 2:10 am
We can only fault him for not going that extra step further and discovering the winking smiley ;-).
October 8th, 2007 at 9:07 am
I remembered my first encounter with a smiley when BBSes were cool. I thought, what the hey? why’s she answering me with a colon?! Ah, the newbie days…
October 23rd, 2007 at 5:55 am
Be honest, hasn’t everybody wished they could turn all Emoticons clockwise by 90′ degrees
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:45 am
I just wish we could make them go away. It’s like how bank tellers and secretaries used to sign their names and notes.
November 6th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
All I see here is poor punctuation.
November 17th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Scott E. Fahlman face is pretty similar to that smiley, lol
November 18th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I really love when simple idea become so popular.
November 19th, 2007 at 2:29 am
How interesting! You never really think about these types of things
December 4th, 2007 at 6:42 am
Nice to know that even the mundane things in life can be recognized. fun little read, I enjoy the lighter things in the news.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:40 am
Ahh.. so HE’s the guy I ought to thank
What can I say
I’m big on my emoticons
(I couldn’t resist)
December 29th, 2007 at 5:51 am
Hmm very cool
March 11th, 2008 at 3:00 am
Hey! Well if he’s the guy who invented the smileys.
Then I am the guy who invented the SUPER smileys.
=) =) =) =) =)
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
[...] Who knows? Emoticons might just have reduced job related stress a few decibles. Read more here about the history of emoticons. Have fun! Oh, and what are your good memories about these fun [...]
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