The Invention of the Emoticon

Above is Scott Fahlman who created emoticons.

In September 1982, a computer scientist named Scott Fahlman suggested to Carnegie Mellon University that :) and :( could be used to distinguish jokes from statements online. The first emoticon was the smiley face and the second was the sad face. Fahlman suggested that the smiley face could indicate humorous posts on a message and a sad face could indicate serious posts. The emoticon translates to the contraction emotional icon. Emoticons are created with type and add to the ability of translating tone and emotion over text. Text based messages are a convenient way to communicate with people, but it lacks the intonation that we use with face-to-face communication. The emoticon was created as an ultimate solution to the problem of translating emotion via text. They were used to replace the non-verbal elements of communication that would normally indicate tone that are missing in written communication.

Above is Shigetaka Kurita who created emojis.

Technology since then has been continuously evolving. Emoticons have been updated to emojis. In contrast to the creation of the emoticon, emojis were created in the late 1990s by a Japanese communication firm. The name is a contraction of the words e and moji, which roughly translates to pictograph. Emojis are created with actual images and show more of an expression of how someone is feeling. Emoticons were invented to portray emotion in environments where nothing, but basic text is available. Emojis were extensions to the character set used by most operating systems today. Our emojis have become politically correct with the inclusion of anti-heteronormative kisses and multi-racial emojis.

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