The History of Memes

What an awesome graph. The creation of the emoticon entry on Sept. 19, 1982 (its smileyface emoticon birthday was yesterday???!!!1) is really interesting. I don't think I really realized that it was purposefully created (allegedly) because the absence of body language made text communication victim to misunderstanding so often (particularly for sarcastic emails). But the emoticon is of course a breakthrough in that sense, particularly the winky-eye ;) or the smiley face :). I use emoticons all the time because I mainly use text communication to communicate with people. And for a long time, I didn't use them - and I constantly had trouble communicating, even when I'd devote a huge amount of time to ensuring the emails were properly worded or whatever. And then I realized - no matter what I do, I cannot stop someone from misunderstanding my tone. At some point, reluctantly, I started using emoticons. Until I looked at this timeline, and specifically the emoticon entry, I don't think I realized it - but I can't even remember the last time someone mistook my emails for anything other than the intended purpose. Partly because I think I don't really devote so much time to my letters anymore, but also I think because I do use the emoticons so regularly when writing sarcastic one-liners or what not.