The digital emoticon turns 30 :-) The digital emoticon, the
representation of a facial expression made by using letters and
punctuation marks – and read sideways – turns 30 today. A
computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, named Scott Fahlman wrote three decades ago, "I
propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-)"
The use of emoticons, however, go back as far the 19th century,
and have been used in casual and humorous writing. It’s the
digital form of emoticons that Fahlman proposed on 19 September
1982 that we now know today: Within a few months, Fahlman's
emoticons had spread to the ARPANET and Usenet. Many variations
on emoticons were then suggested by Fahlman and others.
Nowadays, it’s virtually impossible to avoid emoticons online,
in email and in text messages. “It has been very interesting to
watch the infectious spread of the smiley face and the ‘turn
your head sideways’ principle from my first message, through the
local research community, on to