Birth of the Smiley

I didn't have a chance to post this yesterday, so I'm a day late. Yesterday (Sep 19) is the birthdate of the smiley and frowny, specifically :-) and :-(. Born Sep 19, 1982, by Scott Fahlman at Carnegie Mellon University. He had posted a suggestion on the science department's computer bulletin that users should use :-) and :-( to differentiate between a joke and non-joke message.

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:

:-(

It seems that a lot of people had been posting jokes on the bulletin, but other readers didn't understand they were jokes. Scott says there were "lenghthy diatribes" from people on the message board who failed to get the joke or the sarcasm in a particular post -- which is probably what "given current trends" refers to in his own, now-famous missive. To remedy this, Fahlman suggested using :-) and :-( to distinguish between posts that should be taken humorously and those of a more serious nature. Fahlman's original post was lost for a couple of decades and believed gone for good, until it was retrieved from an old backup tape, thus cementing his claim of priority.