10 More Inventors Who Hated Their Own Creations

These days, you can't look at a text without seeing an emoji. They are ubiquitous, but they weren't always colorful images depicting every possible emotion people could have... and then some made up ones. Originally, emojis were called emoticons and they looked simple enough :-)

The first emoticon (emotion icon) was created by Scott Fahlman back in 1982 when he wrote them into ASCII. They were derived from similar symbols used since the late-19th century to depict joy, melancholy, indifference, and astonishment, but it's safe to say they have evolved since then. They were first introduced to the world in the simplest way possible:

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-) From: 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 :-(

Now that the world has been burdened with an animated film based on the characters, Fahlman has some regrets. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he said, "Sometimes I feel like Dr. Frankenstein. My creature started as benign but it's gone places I don't approve of."