The Emoticon Turns 30
The following line appeared in an email sent from Professor Scott Fahlman of Carnegie Mellon University at 11:44 a.m. on September 19th, 1982:
“I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-) Read it sideways.”
And thus, the first emoticon was born.
The use of a smiley face symbol to indicate that the content of a message was meant to be humorous quickly became a widespread phenomenon. Nowadays, one can’t spend five minutes on the Internet without seeing an emoticon of some type.
Of course, we’ve come a long way since the days of the primitive smiley face. In the thirty years since Professor Fahlman typed the first :-), a myriad of emoticons have been developed. These new emoticons allow computer users to express such complex and nuanced emotions as:
<3 Love,
ಠ_ಠ disapproval,
(V) (;,,;) (V) Zoidberg, and,
( . Y . ) breasts.
While emoticons have become widely adopted, adapted, and appreciated for their ability to indicate sarcasm and function as stand-ins for the facial expressions that digital conversations lack, they have drawn the ire of language purists who consider them ‘lazy’.
But, like them or not, one thing’s for sure: emoticons have been around for 30 years, and they’re likely to be around for at least 30 more. That makes us here at Twirlit feel pretty :D
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