The Man Who Brought a :-) to Your Screen
By Olga Kharif in New York
Scott Fahlman has seen his e-smile and frown spawn a form of
online shorthand. But he never made a dime from it. :(
The year was 1982, and Scott Fahlman had grown tired of gee-
ky scientists who never got the joke. A member of a vanguard
group of computer experts involved in the earliest online news-
groups, the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) researcher partici-
pated in e-discussions on topics as diverse as abortion and cam-
pus parking. Many in the newsgroup, he found, had caustic senses
of humor, but without the benefit of facial expressions or vocal
cues to indicate irony, their sarcasm was sometimes mistaken for
spite.
So he proposed in a newsgroup that posters use a digital
smiley face, `:-)', and a virtual frown, `:-(', to clarify the
tone of their messages. Fahlman was pleasantly surprised when
participants began to use his `smiley' icons to denote emotive
tenor.
In the two decades since, the smiling and frowning icons ha-
ve taken the e-world by storm. Now called `emoticons', short for
`emotive icons', Fahlman's original sideways smiley face sparked
the creation of thousands of variations. And they now go beyond
expressing feelings, with symbols ranging from bawdy adaptations
of Dolly Parton's cleavage to renditions of Dracula with an over-
bite. There are several emoticon dictionaries and a handful of
academics who earn their keep studying the trend.
SOUND AND VISION. Fahlman might not have the first claim to
the emoticon. A mysterious `Netizen' named Kevin Mackenzie is of-
ten cited for having first typed a `-)' symbol, meaning `tongue
in cheek', back in 1979. `As far as I know I was the first, but
nobody can ever be sure', says Fahlman. And establishing the pro-
venance of Fahlman's emoticon is nearly impossible. He never
printed out or saved his famous posting. Nor did he file a trade-
mark. In fact, at the time he didn't think the post was all that
important.
How wrong he was. By 1993, computer book publisher `O'Reilly
& Associates' had put out a 93-page print emoticon dictionary
compiled by David Sanderson, entitled `Smileys'. At around the
same time, James Marshall, a graduate astronomy student at the
University of Maryland, began compiling an online emoticon dicti-
onary, which now has some 2,200 entries. Marshall uses a particu-
larly elaborate example in his e-mail signature: It's half a page
line long and is supposed to depict stars and planets with moons,
which, he claims... `should appear in 3D if you cross your eyes'.
The popularity of emoticons worked with the rise of instant
messaging systems to convince big tech companies to incorporate
numerous emoticons into their products to cover everything from
anger to horror to surprise. `Yahoo!', `America Online', and
`Microsoft Network' all offer instant messaging systems with mul-
tiple emoticons. And now they're taking them into another dimen-
sion. `Yahoo!', which features 16 emoticons, is looking into of-
fering them with sounds. `Microsoft Network', which has 30 sepa-
rate emoticons including one that incorporates a martini glass,
is developing animated emoticons, says Kelvin Chan, `Microsoft
Network' chat program manager and `Microsoft Network''s first
emoticons designer.
OBSOLETE? Dozens of offline businesses are also taking note
of the symbols' ubiquity. In the past five years the US Patent &
Trademark Office has received 24 emoticon-related applications,
many of which are still pending. `Claire's Boutiques Inc.', based
in Hoffman Estates, IL, trademarked the original smiley-face emo-
ticon for use in jewelry. `Instructions.com', based in Ambler,
PA, hopes to trademark the expression `service with a :-)' for
the use in online retail. `Deerfield Communications Inc.', from
Gaylor MI, wants to trademark `personal service with a :-)' for
online customer-service programs relating to software. And `MCI
Communications' has registered to trademark `Is this a great ti-
me, or what? :-)' for telecom services.
With all the trademark applications flying around and emoti-
cons well-established in Internet vernacular, it would seem they'
re here to stay. Maybe not, claims e-mail lingo expert Naomi Bar-
ron, author of `Alphabet to Email: How Written English Evolved
and Where It's Heading', published by `Routledge' last year. Bar-
ron says emoticons' days are numbered, and `the majority will fa-
de, like slang of a generation'.
Perhaps � but they won't fade quietly. Consider what happen-
ed when `Despair.com' � a Web site devoted to dark humor � posted
a mock story on the site last January claiming the company would
sue anyone using its trademarked frowning face without permission
[see: O.Kharif. Company Loves Misery // Business Week Online. �
The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc., Apr 19, 2001].
BILLIONS `SOLD'. The gimmick drew a rash of angry e-mails
from around the globe. ``One warned: `do what you want, but think
about we are millions and if you make us to criminals, we destroy
you!'''. So `Despair.com' quickly announced it would `license'
its frown face for free. The business `sold' more than 75 billion
copies, complete with a two-page mock user's agreement. Some cus-
tomers `order' millions.
Heady stuff. So how has all this affected Fahlman? Not much.
He hasn't made a dime from the craze nor has he tried to cash in
on his creation. Throughout the emoticons mania, he has stayed in
the same job at CMU, studying artificial intelligence. `I am try-
ing to create something that will have a greater impact than that
stupid thing', Fahlman says. Lots of luck ;-).
Edited by Alex Salkever
[Business Week Online. � http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnf�
lash/apr2001/nf20010423_785.htm: The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.,
Apr 23, 2001]