T&D Correspondent

Smiley says it all.

It's like putting a face to one's emotions. But that's just one of the reasons for its immense popularity today. In fact, it has given rise to a whole universe of emotive icons or "emoticons," as they're referred to. It's said that necessity is the mother of invention, and smiley certainly was.

It was 25 years ago, on Sept. 19, 1982, that the ubiquitous smiley was bought to life by Scott E. Fahlman, a professor in the Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science. His three key strokes -- a colon, followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis -- changed the way people "felt" online.

Before that, emoticons were practically unknown, though some believe that in 1979, Kevin Mackenzie used the first emoticon. He's supposed to have used the symbol -) to mean "tongue in cheek." Evidently, it failed to find a following at that time.

While sharing thoughts and ideas online, Fahlman noticed that sometimes, when people posted a funny comment, not everyone got the joke.

It led to misunderstandings. So during a discussion on the limits of online humor, which was posted on the CMU electronic bulletin board, where one could chat, he wrote:

"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 :-("

The emoticons caught on, their use spreading from the CMU electronic board to other university campuses and beyond as the Internet gained recognition. Today, there are hundreds and thousands of emoticons, portraying every emotion known to man.

Commenting on the birth of the smiley face, Fahlman wrote, "I have never seen any hard evidence that the :-) sequence was in use before my original post, and I've never run into anyone who actually claims to have invented it, before I did."

He adds on the university's Web page dedicated to smiley face, "But it's always possible that someone else had the same idea -- it's a simple and obvious idea, after all."

To mark the occasion, Fahlman and his colleagues have started an annual student contest for innovation in technology-assisted, person-to-person communication. The Smiley Award is sponsored by Yahoo Inc. and carries a cash award of $500.

n

Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

You must be logged in to comment.