Everybody Smiley Poops⁠↗

Fahlman’s creation took on a life of its own, along with a suddenly spastic use of exclamation marks, as people figured out how to communicate via the oft-problematic medium of email. Angry or inappropriate emails sent before the sender had time to think, passive-aggressive emails, and emotionally ambiguous emails were⁠—still are⁠—common inbox issues. (I’ve spent hours angsting over the meaning of a “Thanks.” What is it about the period that makes it sound so insincere?) But Fahlman wasn’t exactly pleased with the popularity of his invention. In the early ’90s he told the Boston Globe: “I had no idea that I was starting something that would soon pollute all the world’s communication channels.”

What emotions do the dancing girls dressed as cats convey? Or the boy with triangles all around his head? The two red footprints? The bento box? The dancing ghost? Possible misunderstandings abound. You certainly wouldn’t want to send the purple eggplant and wind up in a sexting pickle when all you wanted to convey was your vegetarianism.

(For anyone interested in what didn’t make the cut, there’s a tumblr cataloguing emojis that have been rejected by the Consortium, which include a top hat full of porn and a bearded planet earth.)