Post-It Notes Were Introduced to the World 45 Years Ago

From Romy and Michelle to Carrie Bradshaw and Berger, Post-It Notes have left their mark on pop culture.

The pressure-adhesive note was first introduced to consumed in April 1980, after years of development at 3M. The adhesive was accidentally discovered by a 3M scientist, Spencer Silver, attempting to make a stronger adhesive in 1968. Art Fry thought of using the adhesive as a way to temporarily anchor something — in his case, a bookmark, to a piece of paper or page in a book.

Another happy accident? The signature yellow color, which just happened to be the paper available to the team working on the product at the time. When it was first introduced, it was the Peel n’ Stick before being renamed the Post-It, just in time to roll out to the world in the spring of 1980.

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In 2017, VICE asked Fry about what it was like to see that Post-Its were a big plot point in 1997’s Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. The film features the duo reinventing themselves before reintroducing themselves to their high school class at their reunion.

When it came to a respectable occupation, the two felt confident convincing people they invented the office staple. Incredulous, Michele (Lisa Kudrow) is asked to explain how she managed to do that. She explains she was responsible for the glue, explaining, “Well, Ordinarily when you make glue, first you need to thermoset your resin … and then after it cools, you mix in a um, epoxide, which is just a fancy-schmancy name for any simple oxygenated adhesive, right? But then I thought maybe, just maybe, you could raise the viscosity by adding a complex glucose derivative during the emulsification process. And it turns out, I was right,” she rattles off.

The well-placed buzzwords in her explanation fool her classmates, though the duo are later exposed. Fry revealed to the outlet that he provided the explanation. “It was completely bogus, and I claim credit for it,” he laughed.

“When they were putting together the film, they contacted 3M (the multinational conglomerate corporation that makes Post-It) to see if we would have any objection to it and to ask for some technical sounding description they could use for the show,” he added. “I wrote out a bunch of stuff that had nothing to do with Post-It Notes, and they used it. It sounds more like something you would use to repair your broken dining room chair than the adhesive required for Post-It Notes.”

Fry also explained why he felt the Post-It-based fib was the right fit for the women at the heart of the film.

“As kids, we all pretended to be different sorts of people. Anytime there is a success, there are a lot of people who will step up later to claim part of it,” he said.

“Actually, there are many people who will have the same new idea almost simultaneously, but few have the ability or stamina to carry through on their idea. It is a lucky thing to live in a point of time and have the resources and skills to make those ideas happen,” Fry continued.