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The Smiley Face Turns 25 :-)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the heh dept.

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.'"

5 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. 24? by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That means 1983 or so.

    I know we were using these on a message board in 1979-1980 at a community college in Michigan prior to then. I might even be able to dig some of it up as I printed off a lot of messages back then and may still have them in an old computer paper box.

    Rather odd anyone would lay a claim to inventing it. I'm certain the concept dates further back to teletypes and such.

    Ah well, anything to start a ruckus on /.

    (c:

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. Graphical smilies suck by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I hate how you type :) in IM or message boards now and they replace the :) with a graphic. I think that ruins it.

    I won't even get into how annoying it is when it changes part of your text that isn't a smiley into a smiley only because it detects the text. It is like how some MMORPGS do ***umption and stuff.

    --
    God spoke to me.
  3. A weird, possibly local, BBS lingo by qdaku · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I remember early - mid nineties when I used to draw ascii (newschool, though I dabbled a bit in the oldschool too) for various groups / BBS in the 905/416/519 region (southern ontario and parts of quebec), that there used to be a different system instead of smileys. Smileys were frowned upon. Instead the system revolved around:

    (g) - grin

    (bg) - big grin

    (vbg) - very big grin

    I wonder if it was just a local thing, or if anyone else used to use that too.

  4. Prior Art? by darqchild · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I believe there is prior art, found in an 18th century poem. I'd bet that typesetters had been mucking about with this stuff since the invention of movable type.

    http://maul.deepsky.com/~merovech/smiley.html

    --
    What? Me? Worry?
  5. Re:You mean Smiley vs. Smiley Face? by wakingrufus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    that article talks about the graphical smiley face. In fact, we are talking about using the colon, dash, and close paren to make a smiley, in which case it is even OLDER!
    It's authorship was credited to the late Harvey Ball (who drew it in the 1960s). "Smiley" is in an ad in the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 10 March 1953, pg. 20, cols. 4-6. See for yourself. The ad is for the film LILI, with the "delightful" Leslie Caron. The "World Premiere Today" is at the Trans-Lux 52nd on Lexington. The film opened nationwide, and this ad ran in many newspapers.

    Today
    You'll laugh :)
    You'll cry :(
    You'll love
    _Lili_