Learning What : and ) Mean Together

Yesterday was one of those days when I began to feel really old and really stupid. To fully understand it, we need to go back many years…

Shortly after my husband and I met in 1990, we started investing in and selling baseball cards, along with my older brother. We also started up a fantasy football league around the same time. Working on one of the two projects, we were all sitting in my brother’s office one night, chatting on an online service. I don’t recall if it was CompuServe or if it was UseNet or what. I just remember we would type something and then get a response back. It was my first experience with the Internet and it’s interesting to think back about it and feel so inexperienced. Anyway, I remember when one of the messages came back, it had a : and a ) side by side. It’s pretty familiar now, but at the time, it was totally foreign to us. We quickly asked the guy on the other end – “What’s that mean?” He responded “Tilt your head to the left” then typed it again. We all cocked our heads to the left and had an “a-ha” moment. I never realized how natural it would become and how ingrained into society those two characters would end up being.

Then yesterday, while typing an email to a friend (/wave Nyssa), I typed the common : ) without even giving it a thought. My 4-year old walked up, pointed at my monitor and said “Mom, that’s a smile face.” I laughed and said “It sure is, honey!” After she left, I realized that someone had to TELL me how to see the smiley; she just walked up and saw it. As I said… I’m feeling really old and really stupid right now.

Do YOU remember when and how you found out about the smiley?