Comments on: Happy Birthday, Smiley!

By: Adam Stanhope

Adam Stanhope — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 14:03:48 +0000

Hi, Miss C.

I am guilty of not being a CAREFUL READER.

Yes – I see NOW that the emoticon is what was being discussed, not the yellow smiley face in a circle.

I promise to be more careful in the future. hehe

By: Miss Cellania

Miss Cellania — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:58:58 +0000

Adam, if you’re thinking about the yellow face smiley pictured, yes, that’s a lot older. This anniversary is for the typed emoticon smiley. The history of the internet emoticon is rather well documented.

By: Stacyj

Stacyj — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:08:29 +0000

You know who else has a birthday today? Samuel Johnson! Mister ‘A Dictionary of the English Language’ himself – it is indeed a doubly-momentous day for language and communication!

As to the smileys, it’s interesting to think about how different online communication would be today without them. I wonder what shorthand might have popped up to indicate, “Please don’t shoot me in the face, that was supposed to be a joke” if it weren’t for smileys? Somehow “j/k” just isn’t nearly as enjoyable …

(I must take issue, though, with the “newer” smileys thrust upon us by IM progams – the first time I used a smiley in AIM 6.0 and all those giant transparent happy faces suddenly cascaded across my screen it startled the bejeezus out of me – simple and unsurprising is GOOD imo when it comes to smileys =P

By: Adam Stanhope

Adam Stanhope — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:22:42 +0000

Color me skeptical about this one.

I can’t be the only person here who was a teen in the early 80s who can remember smilies being around prior to 1982.

Anyone?

By: Saito

Saito — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:52:07 +0000

And I was the first one to use the acronym l-o-l to express feelings of laughter over instant messages.

By: Kct

Kct — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:36:14 +0000

I love smileys and I wouldn’t know to live without it!
Happy birthday!