Friday, September 19, 2008

I see porn.

Sept. 19, 1982 saw the birth of the "smiley" emoticon. Supposedly, on that day, Scott Fahlman posted the first online reference to using these symbols to express a joke, :-) .

Before that moment, all computer users were repressed dorks who fantasized daily about seducing green Orion slave girls, and couldn't take a joke. It took this official proposal for the online joke to be postulated and thus proven. "I assumed that jokes existed," the dorks theorized, "but then my assumptions were given proof. As when Captain Pike was reunited with Vina on Talos."

In his proposal, Scott says, "Read it sideways."

So I read it sideways. And I saw porn. Okay, maybe not porn, but I saw a penis.


Is it just me?

I think that's why they got rid of the "nose" as some point in the emoticons evolution. There probably weren't many women on these boards in the Seventies to notice the penis.

And then one day a woman logged on to find her inbox filled with penises. And the dork who forwarded them received a serious beating. And she probably stabbed him with his "I Grok Spock" button.