Smiley is a symbol that is known in every corner of the globe. It is often used in their messages to express emotions. But few people know that a smiling face has its own holiday.
The history of the appearance of the smiley
In messages through applications and services, modern users very often use symbols that convey their emotions, mood or attitude to something. Sometimes, such dialogues are completely devoid of words and consist only of emoticons or emoji.
An emoticon is a way to convey facial expressions and intonations that are lacking in virtual communication. He can add an emotional color to any message that the sender puts, helping to understand the true feelings and mood of the interlocutor.
Based on the English word for emotion, it would be more correct to call a smiling face not an emoticon, but an emoticon, but it did not catch on.
To determine exactly when the emoji appeared, a digital excavation was conducted by several enthusiasts from Microsoft. The message that first featured a smiley was found by them in 2002 in the bulletin board archives.
The message was sent by Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott Fahlman to a local virtual bulletin board, which at the time was the primary means of communication between students and faculty at the institution. It was on this prototype of a modern forum that on September 19, 1982, a letter was published in which three characters - a colon, a hyphen, and a closing parenthesis - appeared in the text.
It was Professor Fahlman who came up with the idea to supplement the electronic lexicon with icons denoting sadness or joy. But before sending the letter with the first emoticon, he and his university colleagues had long discussions about which symbols should be used in correspondence to more accurately convey the emotional state to the interlocutor.
The traditional yellow smiley face was designed by American artist Harvey Ball. This symbol immediately became very popular, but its creator did not attach much importance to this. Franklin Lowfrani, an entrepreneur from France, was the first to register it as a trademark. The artist, realizing his mistake, was able to register it, creating a slightly modified version.
Who and how celebrates the day of the smiley
The holiday is not generally known, and only people who are directly related to the creation of emoticons celebrate it. It is on this day, September 19, that it is customary to upload new pictures in applications for communication, which are increasingly superior in design and idea to the original source.
Also among professional artists, graphic editors and designers, contests are held to create the most creative and original stickers and themed memes. Prizes are awarded to the winners, and their designs are included in the symbol lines for general use. It is also customary to exchange thematic emoticons on this day.
Graphic emoticons in the form of pictures are popular all over the world. In addition to standard sets, different countries have their own distinctive symbols, the appearance of which is influenced by the culture, alphabet and traditions of the country. For example, in East Asia, a series of emoticons with characters from popular cartoons in the anime style was developed for kaomoji (prototype emoji).
