The first person documented to have used the emoticons : - ) and : - ( , with a specific suggestion that they be used to express emotion , was Scott Fahlman in the U.S. at Carnegie Mellon University ; the text of his original proposal , posted to the Carnegie Mellon University computer science general board on 19 September 1982 ( 11:44 ) , was thought to have been lost , but was recovered twenty years later by Jeff Baird from old backup tapes . The first person documented to have used the emoticons : - ) and : - ( , with a specific suggestion that they be used to express emotion , was Scott Fahlman ; the text of his original proposal , posted to the Carnegie Mellon University computer science general board on 19 September 1982 ( 11:44 ) , was thought to have been lost , but was recovered twenty years later by Jeff Baird from old backup tapes .