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CNN Saturday Morning News
Smile: Look at Emoticons
Aired September 21, 2002 - 07:51 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Remember way back in the olden days -- you had to write e-mails without emoticons? Imagine that! Maybe the word emoticon doesn't ring a bell to you but you probably know what they are.
They are punctuation we put into e-mail to express emotions when we're unable to express them by writing. It's a little bit easier that way. The most famous is, of course, the sideways smiley face which is when you say something really mean and then you put those little smiley face after it and it's just a joke, OK?
It was invented 20 years ago by a guy named Scott Fahlman, not Al Gore. And Scott is an IBM computer expert.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT FAHLMAN, E-MAIL SMILEY FACE CREATOR: It only took one person who didn't get the joke, got angry, and posted something in response and someone responded to that and then we had what we had a flame war. Suddenly everyone's yelling at everyone else and it all started with a light-hearted comment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: And, thus was born the emoticon. Daniel Sieberg is here to tell us about the early days of the emoticon, the history of using random characters to create emoting. Emotions.
DANIEL SIEBERG, TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. It's hard to believe it's been around for 20 years but now it's just absolutely so ubiquitous it's everywhere on the Internet, people use it in e-mail, for instant messages. And, in fact, to communicate it really has changed the way some people communicate. In effect, flirting on-line. It's changed a lot of things with on-line communications.
O'BRIEN: People are flirting on line?
SIEBERG: I hate to tell you, Miles, but there really is a lot of flirting on line.
O'BRIEN: Anyway, what is it about e-mail that requires these emoticons? I mean, years and years of written correspondence over the ages; nobody ever had to do a sideways smiley face.
SIEBERG: And some people still think they're not necessary, some people can get away with just using the written word. But in a lot of cases you may need these little emoticons to indicate that you're being sarcastic. That whatever you said is meant to be taken in a lighthearted manner, and that's, in a sense, how Fahlman -- Scott Fahlman is saying that the emoticon came into existence.
The word emoticon is actually the word emotion and icon bumped up together so you get the word emoticon. So it's a symbol, in a sense, of itself.
O'BRIEN: All right, well, let's go -- do a little chalk talk. Shall we? And...
SIEBERG: Sure.
O'BRIEN: And use the telestrater (ph) to highlight, of course. This is the one that, you know, kind of started it all.
SIEBERG: That's right.
O'BRIEN: The sideways...
SIEBERG: Perhaps the most used one. It's been around for 20 years, and, again, the secret with all these of course is to turn your head on its side and we've seen the evolution of the emoticon in a sense. It's not necessarily what we're going to look at today. If you want to go to the one to the right.
O'BRIEN: Let's go to the one to the right, shall we? And let's see if I can do that a little better telestrating this. There we go.
SIEBERG: And as you can see it's got a little bit of a nose in the middle of it there, and the D means sort of a bigger smiley face, so it's a bigger grin. If you're really happy.
O'BRIEN: So that's like a -- an almost a full gale laugh.
SIEBERG: Right, probably a really happy one.
O'BRIEN: You got a kind of a nose problem there; you probably need to see a specialist.
All right and there's -- this one is...
SIEBERG: This one is if you've got glasses, like myself.
O'BRIEN: Ah, there you go.
SIEBERG: And you want to give more of a sort of an animated nose, then you've got that.
O'BRIEN: All right, and finally, this is...
SIEBERG: That one is if you've got a bit of a crooked smile, so you can be a little bit playful with that one, maybe, or you know, have a little bit of fun with it. There's so many variations, of course, if you want to make...
O'BRIEN: Yeah, maybe a dimple there, on the top of the J. All right, do you have some more to show us?
SIEBERG: We do have some more to look at.
O'BRIEN: Ah, let's look at some more.
SIEBERG: The other ones: these are a little bit tough to get.
O'BRIEN: Take a little effort on this one. Let's start with this one right here.
SIEBERG: These ones are if you've been out drinking, and this is actually supposed to be a drunk guy shouting. So if you turn your head you can see his mouth there; he's go that @ symbol and he's yelling. That's supposed to be a guy who's had a little bit too much to drink and he's shouting. So...
O'BRIEN: Is that his tongue right there? Is that what that's supposed to be?
SIEBERG: Yeah, that's sort of a creative look at his inner mouth.
O'BRIEN: Now, this one -- that's -- walk me through that one.
SIEBERG: This one if you've been out partying, we've got a lamp shade on your head. That's the K, and then the percentage symbol there are the eyes. And the mouth.
O'BRIEN: Oh, yeah. That kind of a kattywonker (ph) face. All right his one is somebody's who's...
SIEBERG: Morning after, this is the morning after that lamp shade event. And now you're feeling a little bit like you're regretting what you did the night before.
O'BRIEN: And finally we got this one.
SIEBERG: Finally, same idea -- if you're a little bit disgruntled, perhaps, not feeling all that great. You've got that sideways smile, now, so it's sort of a somewhere in between happy and sad.
O'BRIEN: All right, do you have any more for us?
SIEBERG: We do, we do have a few more.
O'BRIEN: Real quick, let's do one more sheet.
SIEBERG: OK, we've got a few more if we can get to. These are some of the really fun ones, here. These are the Simpson's characters; this is a really good rendition of Homer. If you look at it, you've got Homer's doh.
O'BRIEN: It's a good doh.
SIEBERG: If you go to the right; now this one you can probably figure out. Part of the Simpson family. O'BRIEN: Oh, of course, it's Madge.
SIEBERG: Marge.
O'BRIEN: Marge, Madge, whatever.
SIEBERG: With the big hair.
O'BRIEN: The Palmolive lady there. All right, let's go ahead. And this one.
SIEBERG: Well that, we've got Bart Simpson with his sort of spiky hair, a little bit like me, again. And, then down there we've got Maggie.
O'BRIEN: Lisa, or Maggie.
SIEBERG: Maggie, the little baby. Yeah, with the little string of hair on the side.
O'BRIEN: Sucking on her thumb. All right, I think we're pretty much out of time. Unfortunately. But we have just successfully continued our history of the web. Daniel Sieberg, thanks very much. Happy emoticoning -- emoticoning -- is that a word?
SIEBERG: I think it is. We'll make it a word now.
O'BRIEN: Happy emoticoning to you. All right, thanks for dropping by, we appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 21, 2002 - 07:51 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Remember way back in the olden days -- you had to write e-mails without emoticons? Imagine that! Maybe the word emoticon doesn't ring a bell to you but you probably know what they are.
They are punctuation we put into e-mail to express emotions when we're unable to express them by writing. It's a little bit easier that way. The most famous is, of course, the sideways smiley face which is when you say something really mean and then you put those little smiley face after it and it's just a joke, OK?
It was invented 20 years ago by a guy named Scott Fahlman, not Al Gore. And Scott is an IBM computer expert.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT FAHLMAN, E-MAIL SMILEY FACE CREATOR: It only took one person who didn't get the joke, got angry, and posted something in response and someone responded to that and then we had what we had a flame war. Suddenly everyone's yelling at everyone else and it all started with a light-hearted comment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: And, thus was born the emoticon. Daniel Sieberg is here to tell us about the early days of the emoticon, the history of using random characters to create emoting. Emotions.
DANIEL SIEBERG, TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. It's hard to believe it's been around for 20 years but now it's just absolutely so ubiquitous it's everywhere on the Internet, people use it in e-mail, for instant messages. And, in fact, to communicate it really has changed the way some people communicate. In effect, flirting on-line. It's changed a lot of things with on-line communications.
O'BRIEN: People are flirting on line?
SIEBERG: I hate to tell you, Miles, but there really is a lot of flirting on line.
O'BRIEN: Anyway, what is it about e-mail that requires these emoticons? I mean, years and years of written correspondence over the ages; nobody ever had to do a sideways smiley face.
SIEBERG: And some people still think they're not necessary, some people can get away with just using the written word. But in a lot of cases you may need these little emoticons to indicate that you're being sarcastic. That whatever you said is meant to be taken in a lighthearted manner, and that's, in a sense, how Fahlman -- Scott Fahlman is saying that the emoticon came into existence.
The word emoticon is actually the word emotion and icon bumped up together so you get the word emoticon. So it's a symbol, in a sense, of itself.
O'BRIEN: All right, well, let's go -- do a little chalk talk. Shall we? And...
SIEBERG: Sure.
O'BRIEN: And use the telestrater (ph) to highlight, of course. This is the one that, you know, kind of started it all.
SIEBERG: That's right.
O'BRIEN: The sideways...
SIEBERG: Perhaps the most used one. It's been around for 20 years, and, again, the secret with all these of course is to turn your head on its side and we've seen the evolution of the emoticon in a sense. It's not necessarily what we're going to look at today. If you want to go to the one to the right.
O'BRIEN: Let's go to the one to the right, shall we? And let's see if I can do that a little better telestrating this. There we go.
SIEBERG: And as you can see it's got a little bit of a nose in the middle of it there, and the D means sort of a bigger smiley face, so it's a bigger grin. If you're really happy.
O'BRIEN: So that's like a -- an almost a full gale laugh.
SIEBERG: Right, probably a really happy one.
O'BRIEN: You got a kind of a nose problem there; you probably need to see a specialist.
All right and there's -- this one is...
SIEBERG: This one is if you've got glasses, like myself.
O'BRIEN: Ah, there you go.
SIEBERG: And you want to give more of a sort of an animated nose, then you've got that.
O'BRIEN: All right, and finally, this is...
SIEBERG: That one is if you've got a bit of a crooked smile, so you can be a little bit playful with that one, maybe, or you know, have a little bit of fun with it. There's so many variations, of course, if you want to make...
O'BRIEN: Yeah, maybe a dimple there, on the top of the J. All right, do you have some more to show us?
SIEBERG: We do have some more to look at.
O'BRIEN: Ah, let's look at some more.
SIEBERG: The other ones: these are a little bit tough to get.
O'BRIEN: Take a little effort on this one. Let's start with this one right here.
SIEBERG: These ones are if you've been out drinking, and this is actually supposed to be a drunk guy shouting. So if you turn your head you can see his mouth there; he's go that @ symbol and he's yelling. That's supposed to be a guy who's had a little bit too much to drink and he's shouting. So...
O'BRIEN: Is that his tongue right there? Is that what that's supposed to be?
SIEBERG: Yeah, that's sort of a creative look at his inner mouth.
O'BRIEN: Now, this one -- that's -- walk me through that one.
SIEBERG: This one if you've been out partying, we've got a lamp shade on your head. That's the K, and then the percentage symbol there are the eyes. And the mouth.
O'BRIEN: Oh, yeah. That kind of a kattywonker (ph) face. All right his one is somebody's who's...
SIEBERG: Morning after, this is the morning after that lamp shade event. And now you're feeling a little bit like you're regretting what you did the night before.
O'BRIEN: And finally we got this one.
SIEBERG: Finally, same idea -- if you're a little bit disgruntled, perhaps, not feeling all that great. You've got that sideways smile, now, so it's sort of a somewhere in between happy and sad.
O'BRIEN: All right, do you have any more for us?
SIEBERG: We do, we do have a few more.
O'BRIEN: Real quick, let's do one more sheet.
SIEBERG: OK, we've got a few more if we can get to. These are some of the really fun ones, here. These are the Simpson's characters; this is a really good rendition of Homer. If you look at it, you've got Homer's doh.
O'BRIEN: It's a good doh.
SIEBERG: If you go to the right; now this one you can probably figure out. Part of the Simpson family. O'BRIEN: Oh, of course, it's Madge.
SIEBERG: Marge.
O'BRIEN: Marge, Madge, whatever.
SIEBERG: With the big hair.
O'BRIEN: The Palmolive lady there. All right, let's go ahead. And this one.
SIEBERG: Well that, we've got Bart Simpson with his sort of spiky hair, a little bit like me, again. And, then down there we've got Maggie.
O'BRIEN: Lisa, or Maggie.
SIEBERG: Maggie, the little baby. Yeah, with the little string of hair on the side.
O'BRIEN: Sucking on her thumb. All right, I think we're pretty much out of time. Unfortunately. But we have just successfully continued our history of the web. Daniel Sieberg, thanks very much. Happy emoticoning -- emoticoning -- is that a word?
SIEBERG: I think it is. We'll make it a word now.
O'BRIEN: Happy emoticoning to you. All right, thanks for dropping by, we appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
