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The Smiley Face Turns 25 :-)

klubar writes "Another milestone of online communications has been reached. The smiley turns 25, according to Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman who says he was the first to use three keystrokes. 'Language experts say the smiley face and other emotional icons, known as emoticons, have given people a concise way in e-mail and other electronic messages of expressing sentiments that otherwise would be difficult to detect. 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.'"

38 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. Editors... by SirJorgelOfBorgel · · Score: 4, Funny

    Anyone else see an obvious mistake here? :D

    1. Re:Editors... by WwWonka · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Anyone else see an obvious mistake here? :D"

      I have NO idea what you are talking about! ;-)
      now bite me! :-P
      oh, wait, I'm sorry, that was rude :-(
      forgive me? :-|
      yes? ALRIGHT! :-)

  2. obligatory by blhack · · Score: 4, Funny

    Smilies are lame :(...

    now bow before you evil smiley overlord >:-|
    (.)(.)
    ^emoticons, making perl regex NSFW for 24 years!

    --
    NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
  3. 25 years ago... by The+Living+Fractal · · Score: 5, Funny

    And it wasn't short after that fateful day, in the next post in fact, that the 8========D came along, forever ruining the intarweb. Historians would later say it was only a matter of time.

    --
    I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
  4. Re:wtf ?? by Bushido+Hacks · · Score: 2, Funny

    >:-O Who are you working for?!
    6:45:57... 6:45:58... 6:45:59...

    --
    The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
  5. Re:24? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    "I know we were using these on a message board in 1979-1980 at a community college in Michigan prior to then."

    That's nothing. The authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls were using them back then!

  6. Re:Graphical smilies suck by gardyloo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, doesn't that make you want to ******inate someone?

  7. Re:Graphical smilies suck by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 4, Funny

    As a matter of fact, Plato only used Greek characters.

    (And people don't typically capitalize all the letters in his name. Just a heads-up.)

  8. Futurama? by camperdave · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hmm... 0-| = I'm Leela and I'm not impressed?

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  9. Re:24? by blhack · · Score: 5, Funny

    As odd as, say, someone keeping printouts of 25+ year old conversations from community college message boards? ;) Welcome to slashdot, you must be new here. Here is your 100 sided dice, your PHD in engineering that you acquired from google University. You're unbelievable hott girlfriend that is part of the demo-scene and collects old VAX/VMS hardware for fun should come in the mail soon...OR WILL SHE COME VIA TCP_OVER CARRIER PIGEON!!!??!!

    nobody knows YOU INSENSATIVE CLOD!
    --
    NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
  10. Re:24? by Jarjarthejedi · · Score: 5, Funny

    Today's Headline - New Hieroglyph Discovered in Egyptian Pyramid

    And in recent new today a new Hieroglyph has been discovered with the Great Pyramid of Giza. The symbol appears to consist of two vertically adjacent circles and a single curve segment whose curvature is oriented such that the 2 circles appear to be near the center of the circle that would be formed were the curve's slope extended out. Our man on the scene has provided us with a crude sketch of this Hieroglyph, whose meaning is unknown but which is suspected to be related to one of the primary emotions humans have experienced since the dawn of time.

    : ) Note how the segment appears to be a piece of a general circle center on the 2 dots. Why a segment of a circle was chosen,
    ^ Rather than the full circle itself, and why it is centered on the dots, is currently unknown
    Also Note how the two circles are placed one directly over the other. Most other Hieroglyphs have utilized slight angles, generally sloping inwards, so this discovery may help understand a great many things that are currently unknown about Egyptian society

    This has been Faux News' Archeology Department. Stay tuned for the weather.

    --
    There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
  11. Re:The only thing I see wrong... by brarrr · · Score: 5, Funny

    you grew up in a 300 baud modem? must have been both uncomfortable and incredibly noisy. it'd be like constantly trying to see through the hayes.

    --
    to email me: take my /. handle and append .net preceded by charter.
  12. Re:The Cheer by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 4, Funny

    \(^o^)/


    KUPO!!!
    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  13. Re:2007-1982 = 25 by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 3, Funny

    "(Read my comment history to find out how old I really am -- you might have to be a subscriber, though)"

    PROTIP: Nobody cares.

    --
    Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
  14. Re:The only thing I see wrong... by Jay+L · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nice ATtitude. Triple-plus.

  15. Re:My favorite smilie by ampathee · · Score: 2, Funny

    See Dinosaur Comics.

    OGC

  16. The emoticon is dead... long live XML! by schmiddy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thankfully, we no longer need to use this outdated technology of "emoticons" to denote humorous sentiments in email and online postings. Some have historically proposed the use of a "sarcasm" tag littered among ordinary text to convey the sarcastic emotion more accurately. I propose going one step further, and am proposing the Humour-XML standard, which will provide a much richer way to fully denote sentiments on the web. For instance, consider the sarcastic exprssion:

    I'll get right on that ;-)

    Even in this simple expression, the smiley face does not convey enough information to the reader to properly discern the mood of the poster. It is left ambiguous whether the poster is completely sarcastic, and will not "get right on that", or if the poster was merely in a humorous mood and implying that they will "get right on that" in a cheerful way. This failure to communicate is costing the American economy untold billions in lost productivity, rivaling that of "sick days" and movie piracy. The following is a rough draft of an XML standard I am proposing to completely eliminate our dependence on this obsolete form of communication.

    I propose a full XML schema devoted to conveying emotion in email, web postings, and Usenet "flame" messages. For instance, the previous message would be written in Humour-XML as:

    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    <posting>
    <message mood="sarcastic" level="highly"> I'll get right on that <smiley deprecated="yes" symbol=";-)" />
    </message>
    </posting>

    The message now contains no ambiguities — the reader understands that the poster is "highly sarcastic" , and does not actually intend to "get right on that"

    The Humour-XML schema provides numerous benefits to users such as: enhanced text-to-speech renderings of postings (the speaker's voice could convey emotion, etc.), backwards compatibility with obsolete emoticons, UTF-8 support, building the Semantic Web from the ground up, and other benefits too numerous to enumerate here. Without extolling the virtues of this fantastic language too greatly, I'll touch on one more gold mine of usability: using XSLT to transfrom Humour-XML to other forms, such as emoticon-text or even SVG graphics. For instance, we can define an XSLT stylesheet like so:

    <?xml version="1.0" ?>
    <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
    <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>


    <xsl:template match="posting">
    <emoticon_text> <xsl:apply-templates/> </emoticon_text>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="message">
    <xsl:copy> <xsl:apply-templates> </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match="message">
    <xsl:text> <xsl:value-of select="symbol" /> </xsl:text>
    </xsl:template>
    </xsl:stylesheet>

    The example XSLT spreadsheet provided here should provide posters eager to try this amazing technology a head-start. I am in the process of carefully constructing a DTD for Humour-XML, as well as several more very useful XSLT stylesheets. I hereby disclaim all patents on said technology, and promise that Humour-XML is free for the world to use royalty-free, forever.

    --
    http://cltracker.net -- powerful craigslist multi-city search
    1. Re:The emoticon is dead... long live XML! by SL+Baur · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah, and I've seen a draft of the 15,000 page MOHumor-XML (Microsoft Open Humor-XML) standard which includes indispensible tags like and .

      Looks like we're going to have another standards battle on our hands :(.

  17. Re:24? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Hey pal, some of us never believed that 100 siders were proper polyhedral dice. All the other stuff is true though.

  18. Re:can you count? by sunami88 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Its like Zonk is trying too hard to unimpress us these days. Before he just was unimpressive (see what I did there?).

    --
    Sex. Drugs, and Unix.
  19. Re:Um, look at the article. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    only on slashdot do the basement dwellers let it be known that they think the vagina is located somewhere between a woman's breasts.

  20. Re:Zonked by fractoid · · Score: 2, Funny

    Seeing someone who's old enough to spell properly, and doesn't know that the original smiley face had a nose, makes me feel so, so old. :(

    --
    Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
  21. Re:Um, look at the article. by fractoid · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's not breasts, that's a bicycle.

    (.Y.)  <-- tits

    (_._) <-- ass ;)

    --
    Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
  22. When I read this headline... by Markos · · Score: 2, Funny

    The first thing that popped into my head was: "I wonder how old the Penis bird is?"

    Curse you slashdot.

  23. Re:24? by ripragged · · Score: 2, Funny

    In a related note, Microsoft was the first to commercially use an emoticon as a trademark, with Windows XP.

    --
    In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
  24. Re:Um, look at the article. by Short+Circuit · · Score: 2, Funny

    only on slashdot do the basement dwellers let it be known that they think the vagina is located somewhere between a woman's breasts. Only on Slashdot does someone mistake a Y for a vagina...
  25. Re:The only thing I see wrong... by keeboo · · Score: 5, Funny

    AArrgh... Too many old-fart nerd jokes here! I'm gonna&#*(% NO CARRIER

  26. Re:Zonked by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've always written it as :-). I've been on the net since 93. Back since in the days when you NEVER wanted to meet anyone who actually used the internet in real life.

  27. Re:24? by franoculator · · Score: 2, Funny

    Very well, where should I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims, like he invented the emoticon. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. A sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament.

  28. Re:Math error by DaveAtFraud · · Score: 3, Funny

    Perhaps a misplaced parenthesis?

    Cheers,
    Dave

    --
    They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
    Ben
  29. Re:Can't... stop... by vonsneerderhooten · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wow. That was the first proper /. thread I've read in a while.

  30. Re:Graphical smilies suck by langelgjm · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, doesn't that make you want to ******inate someone?

    Burninate?

    --
    "Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
  31. Wow... by mmxsaro · · Score: 2, Funny

    I've never seen so many smiley faces around here on /. Quick, someone post a story about Vista before we all get too friendly with each other.

  32. The best emoticon EVER by OGC · · Score: 2, Funny
  33. Guys... we get older... by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 2, Funny
    I disagree - Personally, I become more distinguished.

    Right up until the time I drop dead.

    That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
    1. Re:Guys... we get older... by zippthorne · · Score: 3, Funny

      Do you have to take classes in curmudgeonry or can you just claim equivalent experience and take the test?

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
  34. Re:You mean Smiley vs. Smiley Face? by SolitaryMan · · Score: 4, Funny

    You'll love

    You'll love (. )( .)

    Here. Fixed that for you too ;)

    --
    May Peace Prevail On Earth
  35. Re:got :---) by somersault · · Score: 2, Funny

    Darn straight (:

    --
    which is totally what she said