Title :
On the origins of :-)
Author_Institution :
Los Alamos Nat. Lab., USA
Abstract :
A history of the Internet smiley. It was first used by people who were unused to communicating by writing (having mainly used the telephone) and who began to use the Internet for communication at a time when irony was much in use. There was much misunderstanding because they could not express irony effectively in writing. The smiley was therefore adopted as a convention to draw attention to ironic remarks.
Keywords :
Internet; electronic mail; electronic messaging; history; social aspects of automation; telecommunication services; Internet smiley; electronic communication; irony; Artificial intelligence; Colon; Commercialization; Employee rights; Graphics; Insurance; Internet; Laboratories; Production; Rhetoric;
Journal_Title :
Annals of the History of Computing, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/MAHC.2003.1226657
