Typographic faces in The Strand magazine, England, March 1909. from yesterdaysprint
The bottom ones are very similar to these emoticons from 1881.
Tag Archives: emoticons
Emoticons from 1893, published in the German Kreisblatt für den Kreis Malmedy. h/t Gleb Albert.
CIA:s list of kaomojis (aka dongers, emoticons, etc) or “Japanese style Faces” as they call it.
From Wikileaks via AtticusBones
Dicky ASCII emoticons via Laura Brown.
Scott E Fahlman suggests a use of :) and :( in September, 1982. This happened on a bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA. It caught on pretty fast, and in November there were already several variations.
There are many earlier examples of smilies, but this is likely what popularized emoticons as we know them today.
A smiley from 1862?
“(applause and laughter ;)” from a transcript in New York Times of an Abraham Lincoln speech.
What seems to be a smiley from 1648 (top), written by the poet Robert Herrick, is most likely not. The same book contained more smilies (bottom) that indicate that it’s not supposed to be read as an emoticon. See Slate’s article for more examples and information.
Members of the <3 (-: O religion has created the largest ASCII mandala.
the cryptically cute and stoic emoticon religion, <3 (-: O , use emoticons as a surrogate for physically expressing all emotions. they also combine emoticons and ascii art into powerful sigils used in meditation. recently several large international conferences have been convened to stoically share new developments within the emoticonic community. at one of these conferences, members constructed the largest ascii mandala currently in existence.
from the Library of Sacred Technologies