The Origins of :awesome:

[Heathen]

The Origin of :awesome:


Origins of this quote. (http://driph.com/words/2008/04/origin-of-awesome/)


I’ve been wondering where the smiley came from for a while now (keeps me up most nights), and over the last couple days today I’ve done some digging to find out its history. As :awesome: is part of the emoticon set for the f13 forums, I began by asking schild, f13 founder.

driph: so whats the story of the gigantic smiley anyway?
schild: some guy on something awful made it
schild: some guy on 4chan made it BIGGER
schild: some guy on neogaf made it small
schild: schild made a tiny set of smilies out of them.
schild: fin.
That gave me a place to start, and further searching on the f13 boards led to this post (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=12756.msg432012#msg432012) by Fabricated, referring to the use of the smiley by Yahtzee in the most recent (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/3083-Zero-Punctuation-Army-of-Two) Zero Punctuation:

Um no.
That smiley originated from a Cyanide and Happiness comic, and became a smiley on Something Awful’s forums long before it was beaten to death here. He’s a goon.
Ah ha, Cyanide and Happiness! I was getting closer, and a random pumpkin carving blog entry (http://www.theginblog.com/2007/10/13-of-2007s-funniest-craziest-and-weirdest-carved-pumpkin-jack-o-lanterns/) led me to the particular comic referenced:

http://driph.com/words/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/cyanidehappiness.gif

So, the source was found, or so I’d thought.
http://driph.com/words/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/smiles.gif

This epic thread (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2303803) on Something Awful from January of 2007, over a month before the comic went up, shows the escalation of the icon already well underway.
Originally purchased and added to the Something Awful smiley roster (SA has a pay system allowing members to add smileys) just prior to the above linked thread, it took off like a rocket. Known as :awesome:, the emoticon eventually reappeared as :fuckyou: and later :iamafag: after excessive overuse within GBS and other areas of Something Awful. This explosion of popularity led to its migration onto other forums, most notably 4chan (http://www.4chan.org/) (especially within /v/), where it was embraced with great vigor and enthusiasm.
*** Interstitial! A couple (http://lolwebcomic.deviantart.com/art/Comic-134-Internet-Hate-Mach-60831655) more (http://www.biggercheese.com/index.php?comic=679) web comics that have been erroneously linked as the source at one time or another.
After learning that the original purchaser of the smiley on SA was a user named Whalley, my next step was to get in touch with him. Finding Whalley wasn’t too difficult, and we chatted for a bit about :awesome:. Still amused at how widespread the whole thing has become, Whalley told me about its genesis:

driph: you originally bought that one on SA, right?
whalley: that i did
driph: was it a BYOB invention, or did you find it somewhere else?
whalley: much to my dismay of what i started
driph: I’ve heard everything from 4chan to SA to newgrounds, etc etc
whalley: some guy in byob drew it for this tiny little offsite forum he was at
whalley: i can’t remember who it was, i haven’t looked at an internet forum for like two months
whalley: he posted it one day though and i went “THAT IS SO AWESOME”
driph: nice.
whalley: and well now it’s the mascot for 4chan and has infected the entire internet
driph: the internet is a weird place.
whalley: i have come to be afraid of it
There you have it. Even with potential loose ends to tie up (who the artist was and the site he’d originally drawn it for), this wraps things up enough for me. schild was right, :awesome: did originate at SA, and while it was enormously popular there for a while, it wasn’t until its spread to 4chan that things really went nuts. Peaking in popularity in mid to late 2007, the reign of :awesome: has not yet ended. Spend any amount of time in /v/ on 4chan and you’re bound to see it pop up, and with its continued spread across forums and exposure to new audiences, :awesome: is here to stay.

:awesome:

[The_Wraith]

Informative, but you realize practically every smiley has some sort of weird twisted backstory of how it spread and become a common board emoticon...

Also, I do not use this one. It's pretty gay.

[DaneO'Roo]

ahha wow, good find. That comic is also hilarious.

[legionaire45]

:awesome: post is :awesome:

[Heathen]

Indeed. I love C&H

[itszutak]

Wonder who actually drew :awesome:

[LlamaMaster]

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:awesome:

That is all.

[PlasbianX]

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Is all.

[ultama121]

Somethingawful changed its :awesome: ;_;. Oh well, they still have :iamafag:.

[Heathen]

I JUST SAW BATMAN TODAY.




FFFFFFFUCK!


THAT WAS RAD.



This is something you will almost never hear me say, except in the case of this, Sin City, The Spirit, and 300, but here goes.

I loved this movie so much that I will legitimately buy it.


That is all.

[SnaFuBAR]

:iamafag::jaysome:.

ftfy http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/2193/jaysomenr8.png

[Heathen]

Not to derail this thread or anything, but doesen't it depress anyone else that theres been an absense of :awesome: ness at the forums lately? Theres Danes flood thing, and the forge thing maybe, and something else....but I forget. Where is the HRH, CMT, ZTeam, and H3MT's? Idk, I just always wonder when something :awesome: is gonna come out.

[Reaper Man]

My photography :saddowns:

[NuggetWarmer]

H3MT is waiting for Narrows to be finished. Then :awesome:ness is ensued.

CMT is sorta being slow. I guess people are vacationing.
:mysterysolved:

[Heathen]

:gonk: Not the kind of reply I wanted.

Now people are gonna bitch.

Mind editing it so it just has your answer?

[DaneO'Roo]

ftfy http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/2193/jaysomenr8.png

oh SHIT IS THAT WHAT THAT IS


THAT IS EPIC.