The First Smiley :-)

July 30, 2006 · Filed Under Uncategorized · Comment 

The first smiley or better known as :-) and its many other variants are an important part of worldwide electronic culture. This simple combination of text allows emotion to be express in a very meaningfull way in the early 80’s. The original creator was Scott Fahlman, his original email was lost until it was found it a backup tape in 2002. Here is Scott’s original post:

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

:-(

Some people will argue that smilies have been around for much more dating as far back as the 60s .. sometimes used in military communications (or something). Like it or not, the smiley has become a staple of Internet culture, with animated GIF and other image representations, as well as the ubiquitous text-based emoticon, ” :) “.

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