A closer look
The entire concept of relying on little yellow faces to convey human emotion started because scientists lack a sense of humor. In 1982, computer scientist Scott Fahlman realized that sarcasm was not translating well on text-based Carnegie Mellon message boards, leading to endless arguments. To stop the nerds from fighting, he proposed using :-) to mark jokes and :-( for serious posts. This desperate attempt to inject tone into dry text paved the way for the terrifying modern era where your boss responds to important emails with a single thumbs-up emoji.
