Happy Emoticon Day! This day in history: Sepember 19, 1982:

[Richardo]

1982: At precisely 11:44 a.m., Scott Fahlman posts the following electronic message to a computer-science department bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University:

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E Fahlman

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use:

:-(

With that post, Fahlman became the acknowledged originator of the ASCII-based emoticon. From those two simple emoticons (a portmanteau combining the words emotion and icon) have sprung dozens of others that are the joy, or bane, of e-mail, text-message and instant-message correspondence the world over.

...and that's the way it was: September 19, 1982 - 29 years ago today. :) :party:


Article: http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2011/09/0919fahlman-proposes-emoticons/

[catbyte]

1. Too bad he couldn't trademark it :-) Thanks for the trivia!

[Bunny]

2. I think kids should get the day off from school for this.

It's a pretty big deal! I'm amazed at the creativity shown by some people in developing emoticons - I'm a doofus when it comes to stuff like that. :-)

[Richardo]

4. "Bunny, this is a big fucking deal"

:D :hi: :loveya:

[HappyMe]

3. I wondered who started the whole thing. :) nt

[me b zola]

5. o_O

[tridim]

6. Sounds about right, I was BBS'ing in '82 and remember no smileys before then.

Although ASCII art was the norm, I even saw some ASCII pron.