3 ms·

Emojis didn't exist back in the 90s. This is an anachronism.

by mseepgood 4y ago

laumars 4y ago
Some did. They were called “smilies”.
- anthk 4y ago
  Yep, smileys. MSN, AIM, Gaim (now Pidgin)...
Minor49er 4y ago
No, but the same thing was achievable with GIFs under the "DHTML" banner (the "D" meaning "Dynamic", which typically just meant "JavaScript and CSS"). Custom cursor effects were really popular demos Here are some pages from that era that show off some of these: http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/simpleimagetrail.shtml http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/simpleimagetrail... http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/simpleimagetrail.shtml http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/simpleimagetrail... http://www.mf2fm.com/rv/dhtmlbubblecursor.php http://www.mf2fm.com/rv/dhtmlbubblecursor.php http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex11/customcursor.htm http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex11/customcursor.htm
anthk 4y ago
Pidgin and MSN had smileys. https://gaim.pidgin.im/ChangeLog https://gaim.pidgin.im/ChangeLog
terinjokes 4y ago
The J-Phone SkyWalker DP-211SW was released by SoftBank on 1 November 1997. NTT's DoCoMo i-mode launched on 22 February 1999. So while we didn't have modern emoji in the 90s, the seeds were there. At least in Japan.
dspillett 4y ago
Emoji as the term is currently used did not, but graphical emotion/tone indicators did under a different name: emoticons. They were usually small gif files, sometimes animated but usually not, manually referenced with img tags in your own designs rather than simply being available in commonly installed fonts (so insertable as text if you know the right unicode code/sequence) as we find today. Some forums / BBSs would automatically translate text-based smilies to relevant emoticons or provide their own syntax to add them such as [smiley-face]. Emoticons descended from the text versions referred to as smilies (https://www.csh.rit.edu/~kenny/misc/smiley.html https://www.csh.rit.edu/~kenny/misc/smiley.html). The two terms did often get confused (or just deliberately used interchangeably).

Emojis didn't exist back in the 90s. This is an anachronism.

laumars 4y ago

Some did. They were called “smilies”.

anthk 4y ago
Yep, smileys. MSN, AIM, Gaim (now Pidgin)...

Minor49er 4y ago

No, but the same thing was achievable with GIFs under the "DHTML" banner (the "D" meaning "Dynamic", which typically just meant "JavaScript and CSS"). Custom cursor effects were really popular demos Here are some pages from that era that show off some of these: http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/simpleimagetrail.shtml http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/simpleimagetrail... http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/simpleimagetrail.shtml http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/simpleimagetrail... http://www.mf2fm.com/rv/dhtmlbubblecursor.php http://www.mf2fm.com/rv/dhtmlbubblecursor.php http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex11/customcursor.htm http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex11/customcursor.htm

anthk 4y ago

Pidgin and MSN had smileys. https://gaim.pidgin.im/ChangeLog https://gaim.pidgin.im/ChangeLog

terinjokes 4y ago

The J-Phone SkyWalker DP-211SW was released by SoftBank on 1 November 1997. NTT's DoCoMo i-mode launched on 22 February 1999. So while we didn't have modern emoji in the 90s, the seeds were there. At least in Japan.

dspillett 4y ago

Emoji as the term is currently used did not, but graphical emotion/tone indicators did under a different name: emoticons. They were usually small gif files, sometimes animated but usually not, manually referenced with img tags in your own designs rather than simply being available in commonly installed fonts (so insertable as text if you know the right unicode code/sequence) as we find today. Some forums / BBSs would automatically translate text-based smilies to relevant emoticons or provide their own syntax to add them such as [smiley-face]. Emoticons descended from the text versions referred to as smilies (https://www.csh.rit.edu/~kenny/misc/smiley.html https://www.csh.rit.edu/~kenny/misc/smiley.html). The two terms did often get confused (or just deliberately used interchangeably).