"Father" of Internet Smiley
Named in Class Action
Pittsburgh, PA | The man who brought the smiley face to the Web isn't smiling anymore.
As the universally-recognized "emoticon" celebrates it's 20th birthday, the man credited with inflicting it upon countless millions of internet chat rooms and bulletin boards has been named in a class action suit filed in U.S. Federal Court.
The National Association of HMO Underwriters charges its use has caused widespread incidents of neck injury and serious spinal misalignment.
While a doctoral student at DeVry, Scott E. Fahlman was a regular contributor to Carnegie Mellon University's electronic bulletin boards. Participants frequently typed "kidding" or "joke" after an insult or wisecrack, and Fahlman longed for a way to shorten these lengthy postscripts.
It has been recently documented that on or about September 19, 1982, Fahlman tilted his head and the :-) was born. An endless litany of sideways emoticons soon followed.
Tragically, as computer use soared in the 1990's [see Fig. 1], this growing number of internet addicts unwittingly strained their necks to decipher the latest "kewl" bit of typing shortcuts.
Fahlman was unavailable for comment, but his legal counsel insisted, "Scott can't be held culpable just because people are in such a hurry to post their juvenile crap... everyone thinks they're so goddam funny."
The smiley's days seem to be numbered. Its decline can be attributed to health-conscious companies such as AOL and Microsoft, whose newer programs automatically insert cutesy - but visually correct - icons when a user enters old-school emoticons.
Nonetheless, the damage has been done. The American Medical Association (AMA) predicts that an entire generation of dot-com-ers will require corrective rehab as they approach middle-age.
Citing similar models designed to remedy industrial polluters and the cigarette industry, the lawsuit proposes a "Super Fund" to help defray future medical costs.
Legal action is also being considered against whoever came up with acronyms like AFAIK and ROTFLMFAO, just as soon as plaintiffs can agree on appropriate punishment.
[Note: The Specious Report is not responsible for injuries that result from trying to read "smiley" or "frowney" emoticons on this page.]
