In 1982, who proposed :-) and :-( as text emoticons?

In 1982, Scott Fahlman proposed :-) and :-( as text emoticons.

Fahlman, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, suggested the symbols on September 19, 1982, for use on the university’s online bulletin board. His goal was practical: help readers distinguish jokes and humorous remarks from serious statements in text-only discussions. The sideways face made the intended tone visible without requiring extra explanation.

The proposal quickly spread beyond Carnegie Mellon through networks such as ARPANET and Usenet. The colon represented the eyes, the hyphen a nose, and the parenthesis a smiling or frowning mouth. Users soon created variations including ;-) for a wink and :-D for laughter.

Fahlman is widely credited with popularizing the modern emoticon protocol, but he did not invent every earlier use of symbolic faces. Similar ideas had appeared in print and on earlier computer systems. Emoticons also differ from emoji: emoticons are assembled from ordinary text characters, while emoji are encoded pictographic characters.