Emoticon creator says emoji are ‘ugly’

The standard, smiley-faced emoticon turns 30 this month, and to celebrate the occasion, The Independent interviewed its creator, Professor Scott Fahlman, of Carnegie Mellon University. Fahlman is credited with creating the common :-) hieroglyphic when he included it in an email on September 19th, 1982, but he never imagined that it would become a universal standard. In fact, he has some issues with the more graphic variations that have since sprung up, including the ubiquitous, yellow-faced emoji. “I think they are ugly, and they ruin the challenge of trying to come up with a clever way to express emotions using standard keyboard characters,” Fahlman said. “But perhaps that’s just because I invented the other kind.”