Holiday on September 19, 2026 — Emoji Day: How the :-) Symbol Came to Be
September 19 marks the birthday of the emoji—a symbol without which it’s hard to imagine online communication today. It was on this day in 1982 that Professor Scott Fahlman proposed using a combination :-) to indicate jokes in messages. From simple symbols on the keyboard, smileys have gradually evolved into thousands of emojis that people use every day to convey emotions, moods, and even entire thoughts.
Emoji Day is celebrated annually on September 19. The date is linked to a specific event in the history of digital communication—it was on September 19, 1982, that a message appeared on a university computer network that is considered the birth of the first digital smiley. Its creator was Scott Fahlman, an American computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
This holiday is not an official national or international day. It is more symbolic in nature and serves as a reminder of just how much the way people communicate has changed. In the past, conveying emotions required seeing the person you were talking to or hearing their voice; in a text message, it was difficult to tell when someone was joking and when they were being serious. The emoji became a simple way to add emotion to plain text. In 2026, it will be 44 years since the first digital smiley was introduced. Over this time, :-) it has evolved into an entire system of symbols and, later, into the modern graphic emojis we know today. People now use them in messaging apps, social media, email, comments, and even in professional correspondence.
How the First Emoji Was Born
The story began on Carnegie Mellon University’s electronic bulletin board. In the early 1980s, faculty and students actively communicated there via text messages. It was similar to a very early version of modern forums and chat rooms. The problem arose when someone posted a joke or a sarcastic comment. Other users didn’t always realize it was a joke and took the message literally. Because of this, an ordinary discussion could turn into a long argument.
Then Scott Fahlman proposed a simple solution. On September 19, 1982, at 11:44 a.m., he posted a message suggesting the use of a sequence :-) as a marker for jokes. If you tilt your head to the side, the two symbols and the parenthesis do indeed resemble a smiley face. For messages that weren’t jokes, he suggested the opposite— :-(. Falman could hardly have imagined at the time just how far his idea would go. At first, it was just a convenient convention for a small university community. But pretty soon, these symbols began to be used at other universities and on computer networks. Over time, dozens of new emoji variations appeared.
Why did the smiley become so popular?
The main advantage of the smiley was its simplicity. It didn’t require a special program, an image, or even a separate key. All it took was a regular keyboard and three characters. The smiley helped solve a problem that seems obvious today. Text messages lack intonation, facial expressions, and gestures. The phrase “Okay” can be sincere, irritated, or sarcastic. If you add :-), the interpretation changes immediately.
That’s exactly why emojis quickly became part of online communication. People began coming up with new variations to express different emotions. Winks ;-), surprised faces, sad emojis, laughter, and other combinations. Over time, emojis became so commonplace that users no longer necessarily thought about their literal meaning. The symbols began to function almost like ordinary words or punctuation marks. This was one of the first steps toward modern digital communication.
An emoji and a yellow smiley face aren’t quite the same thing
When people talk about an emoji, they often picture a yellow, round face with black eyes and a wide smile. But there’s an important detail here. The history of this graphic “Smiley Face” began even before the digital age :-). In 1963, American artist Harvey Ball created the famous yellow smiley face for an insurance company in Worcester, Massachusetts. The company wanted to lift employees’ spirits following a difficult merger of two insurance companies. Ball was tasked with creating a simple, friendly symbol that could be used on badges, posters, and other materials.
According to historical records, it took the artist about 10 minutes to draw his version of the smiley face. He was paid $45 for the work. The company initially ordered only about a hundred badges, but they quickly became popular among employees. Eventually, the yellow smiley face spread far beyond the office. It began to be printed on clothing, postcards, souvenirs, and various merchandise. In the 1970s, the smiling yellow face became a true mass symbol of positivity.
However, Harvey Ball himself did not become wealthy from his design. He didn’t trademark the original design and received only those same $45 for his work. That’s why the story of the smiley’s creation is often cited as an example of how a simple idea can become far more popular than its creator.
What Happened to the Smiley Face After the Internet Came Along
In 1982, the smiley was just a simple combination of characters. A person would see :-) and had to tilt their head to realize it was a face. But with the development of computers and the internet, this idea began to evolve. Users created more and more text combinations. Smiles, winks, sad faces, surprise, and other emotions began to appear. This is how an entire vocabulary of so-called emoticons—graphic representations of emotions made up of text characters—took shape.
Gradually, technology made it possible to replace these combinations of characters with actual small images. This is how text-based smiley faces began to transform into emojis. Today, there is a difference between these two concepts: an emoticon is usually created using standard keyboard characters, while an emoji is a separate graphic symbol supported by the Unicode standard. It is thanks to Unicode that modern emojis can be displayed on various devices and across different operating systems. The Unicode Consortium works on developing new characters and determines which ones are included in the international standard.
From :-) to Thousands of Emojis
Today, it’s hard to believe that the vast emoji system started with just three keys. Now, phones feature symbols for emotions, animals, food, professions, objects, travel, weather, and countless other topics. Emojis do more than just express mood. You can use them to add to a greeting, make a joke, highlight irony, or quickly respond to a message. Sometimes a single emoji can replace an entire sentence.
Interestingly, the meaning of some emojis depends on context. For example, the same emoji can be used to express a genuine emotion, a joke, or even sarcasm. That’s why emojis have become part of a living digital language, rather than just a way to decorate text. Every year, the list of emojis continues to grow. The Unicode Consortium reviews proposals for new symbols, after which the approved options may appear on phones and other devices. In 2026, for example, candidates for new emojis included a lighthouse, a pickle, a meteor, a butterfly, and other symbols.
Interesting Facts About the Emoji
One of the most interesting facts is that Scott Fahlman’s original message was long thought to be lost. The first emoji appeared on an old university bulletin board, but access to that data was later lost.
It wasn’t until 2002 that researchers managed to find old backups of the university’s data. After searching through them, they recovered Falman’s message and were able to confirm the exact date of the smiley’s debut
:-). Falman himself explained that this allowed them to definitively establish the digital smiley’s birthday as September 19, 1982.Another interesting fact is that the smiley was not originally intended to express joy. Its main purpose was to indicate that a message was a joke. In other words, the first smiley was essentially a tool for preventing misunderstandings in text-based communication.
Falman also immediately suggested a couple
:-)and:-(. The first combination was meant to indicate a joke, while the second was meant for a serious or negative context. Over time, people came up with countless new variations, among which one of the most popular became;-)— the winking emoji.- There’s an even earlier history. Guinness World Records notes that the first known printed use of typographic symbols to convey emotions dates back to 1881. At that time, the American magazine *Puck* published variations of faces made from typographic symbols to represent joy, melancholy, indifference, and surprise. In other words, the idea of conveying emotions using symbols arose long before the advent of the internet.
How to Celebrate Emoji Day
Since this is an unofficial holiday, there are no strict rules. The easiest way to celebrate is simply to add more emojis to your messages. You can send greetings to friends using only emojis, or try to convey an entire phrase without words. Another option is to revisit old text-based emoticons. For example, throughout the day, you can use :-), ;-), :-D, :-( and other combinations instead of modern images. It’s a great way to see how much digital communication has changed over the past few decades.
For kids, you can organize a fun game. For example, one player shows an emoji, and the others have to guess the emotion or word it represents. You can also suggest that they come up with their own emoji and explain what emotion it conveys. On social media that day, you can organize a small flash mob. For example, post your favorite emoji and explain why you use it most often. Or ask your followers to describe their mood using three emojis.
You can also mention the history of the emoji itself. For example, show your friends what the first text-based emoji looked like :-), and talk about Scott Fahlman and Harvey Ball. That way, a simple excuse for a fun post turns into a brief journey through the history of the internet and digital communication.
Why This Holiday Is Still Interesting
Emoji Day reminds us of something we often overlook. Over the past few decades, online communication has become almost as emotional as a regular conversation. We may not hear a person’s voice or see their face, but a single small symbol helps us understand their mood. Once upon a time, :-) it was a new idea proposed by a professor on a university bulletin board. Today, emojis are used by millions of people in different countries and languages. They’ve become a kind of universal language that can often be understood even without translation.
So on September 19, we can simply take a moment to remember this small but important invention. From three symbols on an old keyboard to thousands of modern emojis, the smiley has come a long way. And perhaps the easiest way to celebrate its birthday is to send someone something nice, adding a regular :-) or .
