daryl durken

The :-) smiley emoticon celebrated its silver anniversary on Sept. 19th. Twenty five years ago Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Research Professor Scott E. Fahlman strung together a colon, hyphen and parenthesis creating an internet revolution. Fahlman created the smiley as a way to indicate a humorous or sarcastic bboard post. Various “joke markers” were suggested. Fahlman’s suggested :-) at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19th 1982 and the rest is history.

You can read more at Carnegie Mellon’s website.