The smiley is 25 years old today. Happy Birthday 
Not the pin badge smiley favoured by the rave generation which was invented by in 1961. I mean the digital smiley favoured by techies and texters worldwide which was supposedly invented by Scott E. Fahlman on this day 25 years ago when he wrote on a bulletin board: “I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: . Read it sideways.” To which the appropriate response should have been ‘Dude, where’s your sense of humour! ;-s’
Whatever. All this talk of smileys made me wonder how exactly the smiley family evolved. Was the happy face smiley the first one? When did we get the 
Did it come before the frown or after? And what about the 
? Surely more widely used than the smiley?
Now that emoticons have taken over instant messenger conversations, I’d almost forgotten what the sideways-written ones looked like until I came across this site. My fave is the smiley with a toupee but I can’t ever imagine using it conversation.
Oh, and if decides to go out for a few birthday drinks don’t be 
if he comes back all :#)
