fromWIRED
3 days agoA Computer Science Professor Invented the Emoticon After a Joke Went Wrong
On September 19, 1982, Carnegie Mellon University computer science research assistant professor Scott Fahlman posted a message to the university's bulletin board software that would later come to shape how people communicate online. His proposal: use :-) and :-( as markers to distinguish jokes from serious comments. While Fahlman describes himself as "the inventor ... or at least one of the inventors" of what would later be called the smiley face emoticon, the full story reveals something more interesting than a lone genius moment.
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