Secret emoticons for Skype - a birthday special
By
Peter on September 20, 2007 in Odds and ends.
There's been quite a bit of talk about the 25th birthday of the emoticon over the last few days — and many of you have probably read the email which started it all off:
19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E FahlmanFrom: Scott E Fahlman
I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers: Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use
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You can read the full email thread on Scott Fahlman's pages on the Carnegie Mellon website.
Update: Jaanus has posted a photo of a commemorative banner on the Carnegie Mellon campus.
Skype has quite a few hidden emoticons. You can find a pretty comprehensive list on Chris Messina's site, but here are a few favourites of mine:
(drunk) ![]()
(poolparty) ![]()
(rock) ![]()
For the patriotic among you, you can type things like (flag:gb)
(or one of any of the two-letter ISO country codes) to re-live those last night of the Proms moments.
Photo by SMN






Comments
My favourite emoticone is (poolpartty)
didka-banditka96 | Sunday, May 18