Where do emoticons come from?

There was an interesting post on the Meebo blog this morning about the origins of emoticons, of course, as usual, wikipedia helps us solve the "mystery" with a really complete article about those little things that invaded our lives (for those who say LOL when they talk :) ). It is interesting to see that emoticons were used way before the boom of IM!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon

Just one of those things you would never think you would need to know...