The History of Emoticon

Did you know the emoticon is almost 30 years old? Twenty-nine years ago, Scott Fahlman, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, first proposed a colon, hyphen and bracket as a way of conveying emotional meaning via plain text.



Fast-forward and the simple smiley has evolved — some might say mutated — into various, and very varied, multi-colored, animated characters leering at you from your computer or phone screen.

To mark this anniversary, we’ve taken an abridged look at some interesting moments in the history of the emoticon. Have a look through the gallery and let us know in the comments your thoughts on this form of communication.
1. The Olden Days

Using symbols to convey emotional meaning was not a 1980s concept. A hundred years previous, the "letter-press department" of satirical magazine Puck jokingly created typographical "studies in passion and emotions" so as not to be out-done by cartoonists.

It has since been suggested that one very early use of an emoticon can be credited to none other than Abraham Lincoln. In the original New York Times transcript of an 1862 speech by Lincoln, the symbol ;) appears. There have been interesting arguments put forth as to whether or not this was a winking face, or (as we suspect) simply a typo.

Various reports (that we've been unable to verify) suggest that in 1979, an ARPANET user called Kevin MacKenzie, inspired by an unidentified Reader's Digest article, suggested using punctuation to hint that something was "tongue-in-cheek," as opposed to out-and-out humorous.

Apparently, MacKenzie throught a hypen and a bracket -- -) -- would be a suitable symbol: "If I wish to indicate that a particular sentence is meant with tongue-in-cheek, I would write it so: 'Of course you know I agree with all the current administration's policies -).'

However, as we now know, it wasn't the tongue-in-cheek concept that took off, but the smiley-based emoticon. Although the classic yellow "smiley" design existed before Fahlman got creative with his computer keyboard...

source: mashable.com
pics: yahoofanclub,com