Happy 25th Birthday, Emoticon

Filed under: Design, Fun, Internet, Social Software

Happy 25th Birthday, Emoticon

by Chris Gilmer Sep 19th 2007

Twenty Five years ago, a clever University professor added a colon to a right parenthesis and thus changed the course of human events. Ok, maybe we're overstating the social and cultural impact of the emoticon but, you'll have to admit, love them or not, they're everywhere.

Scott E. Fahlman dreamed up the sideways smiley in a discussion about how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly. The message posted on September 19th 1982 on a bulletin board system at 11:44am, Fahlman floated the idea to some compatriots. Responding with statements like "OMG" and "ROTFL!", his online audience liked the idea, and the little sideways smiley that could spread quickly through an Internet the size of some current LANs. The smiley has seen many variations over the years, denoting a range of emotions from happy to sad, snarky to shaudenfrude.

To mark the smiley's 25th birthday, Fahlman and friends have started an annual student contest promoting innovation in technology based person-to-person communication. The Smiley Award, as it's appropriately called, is sponsored by Yahoo and carries a $500 cash prize.

The instigator of "LOL" was unavailable for comment.

Tags: emoticon, Scott-E-Fahlman, smiley, voice, yahoo

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

spncram said 11:09AM on 9-19-2007

Seriously? :-[
http://archives.cbc.ca/400d.asp?id=1-75-710-4205

Also, isn't it kind of silly to say that only one person thought of the emoticon? :-P

Gina said 2:06AM on 10-08-2007

lol :)

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