Oddity of the Week: The History of Emoticons
Created | Updated Jan 13, 2013
You know them. You use them, when you aren't on h2g2. What do you know about. . .
The History of Emoticons
You know what we like best about this story? The generous notice that says, 'No copyright.' Our kind of people, those typesetters. But they anticipated the emoticon by about 100 years.
Some people say that Abraham Lincoln invented the emoticon. The New York Times rendered a Presidential speech in 1862 containing the symbol :). Of course, spoilsports say it was a typo. Such is life.
Scott E Fahlman of CMU – in case you're not from Pittsburgh, that's Carnegie Mellon University – is credited with inventing the emoticon in a 1982 memo which says in part:
'I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:
:)
Read it sideways.'
Now we know.
What was Scott worried about? The fact that people often took remarks seriously online that were meant ironically. He thought we ought to warn each other about that. He was probably right. That's why h2g2 has so many smileys. We don't know how to take each other without our winkeyes and chocolate teapots, you know.
In case you weren't sure about that paragraph. . . 
Celebrate the emoticon!
