e-mails from Scott Fahlman

concerning the genesis of smileys

19-Sep-82 11:44    Scott E  Fahlman             :-)
From: Scott E  Fahlman 
 
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
        
:-(

Date: Sat, 29 Apr 95 01:06:54 -0400
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" 
To: Don Z'Boray
Subject: Re: smileys

Yes, I am the one who first suggested the use of the :-) and :-(
glyphs in E-mail and bboard posts sometime around 1981.

People were making sarcastic comments in posts, others were taking
them more seriously than they were intended (no body language on
the net), and silly arguments were breaking out.  So I suggested
on one of the CMU bboards that people explicitly label comments
not meant to be serious with a :-) glyph.  Very quickly this idea
spread all around the world and others started creating clever
variations on the theme.  The awful term "emoticons" is much more
recent.  Unfortunately, I didn't save the original note.  I post
things like this all the time, and never guessed that this one
would make history.

Cheers,
Scott
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Scott E. Fahlman                        Internet:  sef+@cs.cmu.edu
Principal Research Scientist               Phone:     412 268-2575
School of Computer Science                   Fax:     412 268-5576
Carnegie Mellon University              Latitude:  40:26:46 N
5000 Forbes Avenue                     Longitude:  79:56:55 W
Pittsburgh, PA 15213                        Mood:      :-)
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