Slopfest #56 · 1982 · Vienna
Read This Sideways
A professor proposed :-) to mark jokes online. We still use it to mark our schedule.
Museum status: Currently touring. Nobody knows where.
- Venue
- Café Schwarzenberg, all tables tilted
- Attendance
- 3,900
- Also spotted
- A Bravo poster of a young David Hasselhoff leaning on K.I.T.T., taped next to the emoticon wall
- Fun fact
- 1,288 smileys, all sideways
What happened
Every item in the program was printed with either :-) or :-( so guests would know whether it was a joke. The keynote got :-) and the ticket price got :-(. Several guests read the program upright and assumed the festival was entirely punctuation, which the committee has never denied.
Elsewhere in 1982
Scott Fahlman proposes the emoticons :-) and :-( on a Carnegie Mellon message board, to mark jokes and serious posts.
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