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Smiley
First appearance	1963
Created by	Harvey Ball[1]

A smiley, smiley face, or happy face, :) or :D is a stylized representation of a smiling humanoid face, commonly occurring in popular culture. It is commonly represented as a yellow (many other colors are also used) circle (or sphere) with two black dots representing eyes and a black arc representing the mouth. “Smiley” is also sometimes used as a generic term for any emoticon.

The variant spelling "smilie" is not as common,^[2] but the plural form "smilies" is commonly used.^[3]

Popularization[link]

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The first happy face recorded on film can be seen in Ingmar Bergman's 1948 film "Hamnstad". Later on, in 1953 and 1958, the happy face was used in promotional campaigns for motion pictures Lili and Gigi, respectively.

First use of happy face in a campaign for the film Lili in 1953

The happy face was first introduced to popular culture in 1958 when the WMCA radio station in New York ran a competition for the most popular radio show at the time, 'Cousin Brucie'. Listeners who answered their phone 'WMCA Good Guys!' were rewarded with a 'Good Guys!' sweatshirt that incorporated a happy face into its design. Thousands of these sweatshirts were given away during the late 1950s.

In 1963 Harvey Ball, an American commercial artist, was employed by State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts (now known as Hanover Insurance) to create a happy face to raise the morale of the employees. Ball created the design in ten minutes and was paid 45 dollars. His rendition, with bright yellow background, dark oval eyes, and creases at the sides of the mouth, was imprinted on more than fifty million buttons and was familiar around the world. The design is so simple that it is certain that similar versions were produced before 1963, but Ball’s rendition as described here became the most iconic version.^[4][5]

In 1967, Ball's design was used in an advertising campaign for Seattle-based University Federal Savings & Loan. This was later used when the man behind this campaign, David Stern, ran for Seattle Mayor in 1993.^[5]

In 1972, Franklin Loufrani introduced the happy face to a European audience, giving it the name "Smiley". On January 1 the 'take the time to smiley' promotion was launched in the French newspaper 'France Soir'. The Smiley logo was used to highlight all good news so people could choose to read positive and uplifting articles.^[6]

The graphic was popularized in the early 1970s by Philadelphia brothers Bernard and Murray Spain, who seized upon it in September 1970 in a campaign to sell novelty items. The two produced buttons as well as coffee mugs, t-shirts, bumper stickers and many other items emblazoned with the symbol and the phrase "Have a happy day" (devised by Gyula Bogar) which mutated into "have a nice day". Working with New York button manufacturer NG Slater, some 50 million happy face badges were produced by 1972.^[7]

In the 1970s, the happy face (and the accompanying 'have a nice day' mantra) is also said to have become a zombifying hollow sentiment, emblematic of Nixon-era America and the passing from the optimism of the Summer of Love into the more cynical decade that followed. This motif is evidenced in the era of "paranoid soul" such as "Smiling Faces Sometimes" (released by The Temptations in April 1971, and by The Undisputed Truth in July 1971), "I'll Take You There" (The Staples Singers, 1972), "Don't Call Me Brother" (The O'Jays, 1973), "Back Stabbers" (The O'Jays), and "You Caught Me Smilin'" (Sly and the Family Stone, 1971).^[7] The origins of this was parodied in a famous scene from the movie Forrest Gump when Forrest is on his multiple jogs across America, and wipes his face on a T shirt given him by a struggling salesman, and on the shirt, as if transferred there by Forrest's face, is the image of the happy face, whereupon the man gets his idea.

In the UK, the happy face has been associated with psychedelic culture since Ubi Dwyer and the Windsor Free Festival in the 1970s and the dance music culture that emerged during the second summer of love in the late 1980s. The association was cemented when the band Bomb The Bass used an extracted smiley from Watchmen on the centre of its Beat Dis hit single.

Usage in telecommunications[link]

The smiley is the printable version of characters 1 and 2 of (black-and-white versions of) codepage 437 (1981) of the first IBM PC and all subsequent PC compatible computers. For modern computers, all versions of Microsoft Windows after Windows 95^[8] can use the smiley as part of Windows Glyph List 4, although some computer fonts miss some characters, and some characters cannot be reproduced by programs not compatible with Unicode.^[9] It also appears in Unicode's Basic Multilingual Plane.^[10]

Licensing and legal issues[link]

A satirical use of the smiley at the 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity.

French journalist Franklin Loufrani registered the iconic smiley face image as a trademark in France in 1971, and he created "The Smiley Licensing Corporation, Ltd." to sell, license, and advertise the smiley face image in the United Kingdom and Europe. In 2001 the name of Loufrani's company was changed to SmileyWorld, which has managed to register the symbol in over 100 countries (not including the USA) for 25 classes of goods and services.^[11]

In 1999, Harvey Ball belatedly formed his own "World Smile Corporation" and began licensing his particular rendering of the happy face to fund charitable causes.^[12] Profits are distributed to charities through the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation, which also sponsors the annual World Smile Day Ball started in 1999 to encourage "acts of kindness."^[13]

In 1997, Franklin Loufrani and Smiley World attempted to acquire trademark rights to the symbol (and even to the word "smiley" itself) in the United States. This brought Loufrani into conflict with Wal-Mart, which had begun prominently featuring a happy face in its "Rolling Back Prices" campaign over a year earlier. Wal-Mart responded first by trying to block Loufrani's application, then later by trying to register the smiley face themselves; Loufrani in turn sued to stop Wal-Mart's application, and in 2002 the issue went to court,^[14] where it would languish for seven years before a decision.

Wal-mart began phasing out the smiley face on its vests^[15] and its website^[16] in 2006. Despite that, Wal-Mart sued an online parodist for alleged "trademark infringement" after he used the symbol (as well as various portmanteaus of "Wal-," such as "Walocaust"); and they lost that case in March 2008, when the judge declared that the smiley face is not a "distinctive" mark, and therefore cannot be trademarked by anyone—and thus, Wal-Mart has no claim to it.^[17]

In June 2011, Wal Mart and the Smiley company of Brussels founded by Loufrani settled their 10-year old dispute in front of the Chicago federal court. The terms remain confidential. ^[18]

See also[link]

• Emoticon
• Galle (Martian crater)
• Acid2
• History of the Acid House Smiley Face

References[link]

vep:Smailut

Pacha Man (born Călin Nicorici, 21 July 1976 in Timişoara, Romania) is a reggae musician. He is one of the first Romanian artists to pursue a career as a reggae artist and the first to release a professionally produced album in this genre. He is well known for his aggressive style and trademark Patois-Romanian mixture approach to songwriting.^[1]

Biography[link]

Pacha Man was born in 1976 in Timişoara, Romania, the city where he also spent most of his childhood. His father emigrated to Canada in 1980, leaving a young Pacha Man with a diminishing interest in education and an eager wish to earn his existence. He followed his father's footsteps at the age of 14, in 1990, when he left for Canada, a country that would become his home for the next seven years while he also spent various amounts of time in New York and Miami. He got his start in writing lyrics and making music while observing the African immigrants' habits in Canada and the United States. He returned to Romania in 1997, father of one with his first wife, a Colombian immigrant he met while living in Canada. He also studied law for 3 years in New York.^[2] While in the United States, Nicorici was incarcerated for 3 years for robbery and assault after which he was deported back to Romania in 1997.

Career[link]

In the 1990s Romania, a country that had just overthrown its communist dictatorship, witnessed an explosion of popular music from Western culture as the youth quickly gained its access to information. The hip hop industry was at an all time high by the time Pacha Man returned to Romania in 1997. He started emceeing in a club in his native Timişoara and quickly gained the public's attention for his innovative and refreshing style. One of his Timişoara friends was a club disk jockey going by the name of DJ Angelo. He suggested Pacha Man, derived from the Turkish military rank pasha, would be perfect as a stage name for the 21-year old Nicorici, as he drew a considerable female audience in his early years. He recorded and released his debut album, Globul De Cristal (The Crystal Globe) in 1998 and, although the album was an independent, self-produced material, it created enough buzz around Pacha Man, enabling him to set many contacts in the Romanian music industry. He collaborated with hip hop veterans B.U.G. Mafia on their 2000 album Întotdeauna pentru totdeauna and in 2002 signed with hip hop powerhouse Rebel Music. While on Rebel Music, he released his second album, Drumul Către Rastafari (The Road To Rastafari), one of the highest regarded reggae albums ever released in Romania. The album was supported by the hit single Acelaşi Sânge (One Blood), a reggae-style social protest that catapulted him to superstardom. In 2004 he left Rebel Music and released his third album, Contra Curentului (Against The Stream), in 2006 via Nova Music. Zale member and producer Jaques Yolo produced the supporting single of the album, Crazy, making his affiliation with the band's label, Chill Brothers Records, public. He signed with Chill Brothers Records in 2007, but has since left the label without releasing any new material.^[3] In 2010 Pacha Man collaborated with Romanian R&B artist Smiley for his solo album Plec Pe Marte (I'm Leaving For Mars) on a track named "Love Is For Free". He also recorded a verse for Romanian hip hop group Paraziţii's 2010 album Tot Ce E Bun Tre' Să Dispară (Everything That's Good Is Gotta Go) but the song did not make the album.

Discography[link]

• Globul De Cristal (The Crystal Globe) (1998)
• Drumul Către Rastafari (The Road To Rastafari) (2003)
• Contra Curentului (Against The Stream) (2006)
• Dragoste Sau Frica (2011)

See also[link]

• Romanian hip hop

References[link]

1. ^ Pacha Man – Hip – Hop – afterPARTY!. Afterparty.ro. Retrieved on 2012-06-01.
2. ^ Pacha Man are doi copii, pe doua continente | Jurnalul National. Jurnalul.ro (2005-06-07). Retrieved on 2012-06-01.
3. ^ Raluca Grintescu. Pacha Man este nebun de legat | Jurnalul National. Jurnalul.ro (2005-09-09). Retrieved on 2012-06-01.