Emoticons are so much a part of our everyday digital existence. It’s hard to believe it’s been 25 years. CNET explains that “the origin of the ASCII smiley face is typically traced to September 1982, when Scott Fahlman, a research professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Computer Science, suggested that the :-) symbol be used in the subject line of an online bulletin board post to denote a humorous or non-serious topic..."Nobody ever guessed that this would catch on. I certainly didn’t,” said Fahlman, who is still on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon. But as he recounted, the trend spread, initially to other Internet-pioneering universities like Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then beyond.” Thanks to Andrew Mager for the tweet.
