Talk:Smiley

Ray's Food Place 1980s

I can't find references for this, but Ray's Food Place used this as a logo in the 1970s and 1980s. I'm not sure why they stopped. There are still some stores with windows with the ghost image of these logos on them. http://www.ckmarket.com/ 67.169.49.52 (talk) 05:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Proto Smiley 1957

Ken Nordine's Cover for his 1957 jazz/jive talk album Word Jazz featured a strikingly similar, yet more stylized version of a talking happy face, which may have inspired the canonical version. Spikeysnack (talk) 03:13, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Richard Ball vs Harvey Ball

The smiley article suggests a Richard Ball invented the smiley face. The Harvey Ball page suggests it was Harvey Ball, as does his own page. Harvey Ball is also mentioned here. It can't be both, can it? ElectricRay (talk) 11:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Smileyworld?

Reads like an ad. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.28.136.12 (talk) 05:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

You’re right, it’s way too sketchy. I deleted it. (Interested parties, check the archives.)

It didn’t just seem like an advertisement; it seemed like a veiled threat to anyone who would deign to use a smiley face without paying this creepy company. They’re gone. Cherry Cotton (talk) 10:06, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Holy crap... that's horribly POV. Not to mention kinda creepy. Funny how it's back there when it's been deleted in January.167.1.143.100 (talk) 23:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

wth, why did you delete smileyworld? it was totally legit and related to this article. wonderfully written. >:( —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.72.25.210 (talk) 01:41, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

This article states: "Loufrani had created the icon in 1971" and "created by freelance artist Harvey R. Ball in 1963." It would appear impossible for both to be true - suspect the 1963 date and creator are correct. It would appear that Wiki is perpetuating some French guy's scam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.158.61.140 (talk) 18:05, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Frownies

nooooo smilies !

The bit about "frownies" is a joke, of course... smileys are funny.

http://www.liemails.com/indexfr.htm (broken link)

This needs to be updated. --Larry

Japanese

Thanks for having the explanation of Japanese smileys. That cleared up a lot of things for a lot of people, including me. ;-)

Add more

Add more smiley face pictures seriously the page is boring! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.253.43.146 (talk) 20:36, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Only basic smileys useful

I wanted to provide some evidence to buttress my assertion that only the most basic smileys are really used with any frequency. I thought I would try performing a Google Groups search on some of the smileys, but apparently the punctuation marks confuse Google, as searches on

":-)"

and

";-)"

simply produce blank pages (no hit counts).

Are there any Google experts who know more about Google's search syntax and know how to ask Google to search for colon, hyphen, close-paren? Dpbsmith 23:14, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hello Dpbsmith,

The use of : , ;, - and ) are being ignored.

Greetz, 80.126.238.60 (talk) 16:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Duplicate

Doesn't this article duplicate a lot of material from emoticon. Look at the list of smilies, for example. Should this material be moved to emoticon or vice-versa? Should the two be merged and emoticon be made a redirect to Smiley? I hate to have two seperate articles that discuss the same thing differently. —Frecklefoot 17:17, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. IMHO all the content in "Smileys on the Internet" should be merged into Emoticon and be replaced with a link to Emoticon. Dpbsmith 17:26, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

In theory and common speech; yes, but in fact no. The reasons involve the restrictions of the copyright on "Smiley" etc --restrictions on what can be said here. Obviously the owner does not want smiley=emoticon, and to Hell with common lingo and all those rich derivations and related stories. Also; this is a classic example of how copyrights and other so-called intellectual rights can rob the public of value/wealth. (The USA has the world's highest acceptance of easy intellectual "property" rights (to the few, restrictions to the many) and the strictest enforcement.) In fact, the emoticon article is not only more germane, but far better, and I think the claimed rights and resulting chilling effects are why.
--71.133.255.249 (talk) 03:12, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Doug Bashford

British rave culture

I'm sure I remember the smiley being one of the major images attached to the rave/ecstacy culture in Britain in the early 90s. I think it was common (might still be) to have a smiley on one side of an E pill. -- Jim Regan 22:30, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"Acid House" was definitely in the UK chart mainstream by the late '80s; you couldn't get away from it in the summer of '88. I've moved the time back accordingly. - Astatine 16:14, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Guy Smiley

Isn't there also a Muppet named "Guy Smiley"? I don't know much of his history, so I can't really contribute a lot, but if memory serves... - - Gingerkitteh

Yeah, there was -- Guy Smiley, dubbed America's favourite game show host.

ASCII

Why did they put the ☻ and ☺ in ASCII? See Code page 437 for what I mean. --Abdull 20:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

graemlins

An editor who wrote on Smiley (disambiguation)

Smileys are sometimes referred to as graemlins.

may have meant what they said, that "graemlin" is another word for smiley, in the article's sense, but this is not clear, especially since that would mean it belonged in Smiley, not where they put it in Smiley (disambiguation). Of course, whatever they meant, it needs verification.
--Jerzy•t 00:30, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Muhammed

Is this really necessary? http://hodja.wordpress.com/2006/02/22/muhammed-smiley/

Disputed origins

Read this BBC article - it says many people claim to have created / propagated / designed the smiley. Is there any concrete evidence for the statements made in the article? - Bnitin 02:23, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The first smiley face I ever saw was at a free rock concert in Laguna Beach, California, c. 1969 or 1970. The Brotherhood of Eternal Love distributed very large suckers made of Orange Sunshine LSD. These had smiley faces engraved on them. Some time later I noticed the more familiar version, which for some reason changed the color from orange to yellow.Frederick Dolan (talk) 18:37, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

People can argue about the origin of the smiley face all they want, but the fact remains that the oldest known usage of the smiley face, as per this article, is 1963. That pretty much limits its origin to either Harvey Ball or the cartoon series "The Funny Company", which also first aired in 1963. The caps the kids wore in that series featured a smiley face on the front. grifterlake (talk) 00:02, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I would think that people have been using smiley faces for hundreds of years. It's a pretty obvious thing to draw. ☺ (Huey45 (talk) 05:49, 2 May 2010 (UTC))

The Wingdings smiley

Can the Wingdings smiley be included? It is the letter J in Wingdings font.

inhunt.com

Someone made a request at the Wikipedia: Abuse reports page to deal with the spamming by inhunt.com, although it was in poor and incorrect form. I took a look at the spamming that has taken place here and on the Emoticon article, and decided to make a proper abuse report, seen here. In my little investigation, I saw that this spamming was taking place from multiple IPs, which were registered to many places. Also, some of these IPs appeared to be making worthy contributions. I don't really have a clue if this is a bot or not, or what it exactly is doing to achieve this high rate of spamming. This is because I lack any advanced knowledge in the area of computers or internet. So if someone a little more knowledgable could take a look at this, and add a better sypnosis to my abuse report, that would be greatly appreciated by all. --Reaper X 19:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, DavidHOzAu suggested that we get our good bot friend Tawkerbot2 involved, and ask to have inhunt.com added to it's spam blacklist. I did that, and Tawker did so. So hopefully they are gone for good! --Reaper X 02:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Supposed Australian Usage of Word

"Smiley is another name for curb stomping. In Australia, people commonly refer to it as a smiley due to the scars that are left after the act has occurred"

People commonly refer to it as a smiley? I am Australian, and I have never heard of this being used in this context. The only use of the word "smiley" is the same as everywhere else - the smiley face. Also this statement makes it sound as if curb stomping is a popular practice, as it supposedly has its own slang terminology - which it certainly is not - here or anywhere else. 203.51.151.156 13:33, 28 June 2006 (UTC)Nathan

I have never heard of curb stomping before I read it in this article. A smiley is always ;-) to everyone I know who uses the term. My opinion is to get rid of the reference to curb stomping; it is not a common usage and it is likely patent nonsense. --DavidHOzAu 05:00, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Smiley :-) article link

Someone found this article to be spam: Extensive Smiley :-) article I must say that I was really surprised to see someone think that way, I have worked my a** off to prepare article for the net.

Please review the link. Thanks, Borislav Dopudja 02:44, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Removing it wasn't necessarily an indication that it was a poorly written article, just that it is not appropriate for inclusion in this encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a repository of links. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 11:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Smileys using computer keys

Should we limit these to those that appear to be smiling?Pendragon39 17:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

background of smilies

do we really need this? 206.248.139.177 07:22, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking the same, and went to read the talk-page to see if someone had discussed it. I don't think it adds anything to the article, and since I'm evidently not the only one, I have removed it. Alatius 19:51, 12 August 2007 (UTC) You should make cooler smiley faces on the computer other than :) this one! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.253.43.146 (talk) 20:38, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Origins

The Straight Dope article seems pretty authoritative. It has no mention of Franklin Loufrani. It also places the Spain brothers' creation at 1970, which would predate the current mention of Franklin Loufrani. The Franklin Loufrani paragraph is also unsourced. If no one can provide any further sourcing, I move that we delete this paragraph, which may well be self-serving advertising. Notmyrealname 20:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Since no source seems to be available, I'm deleting the following passages:

"However, Franklin Loufrani of London-based company SmileyWorld says he came up with the image in 1971 for a newspaper promotion in which he displayed his icon to highlight good news. He then started developing products using this logo as a brand. The logo and the name are trademarked by Franklin Loufrani across 100 countries for most classes of goods and services. His master licensee Smileyworld is developing products with licensed partners in industries such as clothing, accessories, home textiles, food and confectionery, stationery, toys, gift items, housewares, publishing and fragrances. In 1997, his son Nicolas Loufrani started developing hundreds of variations of the Smiley logo with many different moods and categories such as weather, occupations, countries, animals, objects and so forth. He also developed a character based version with a body, arms and legs. They were the first non-text based emoticons available to use on the web."

"In 2005 Nicolas and Franklin Loufrani created the Smiley World association, a charity part of the SOS group and wholly financed by sales of Smiley products developed by Smileyworld Ltd and Smiley industries Ltd." Notmyrealname 16:54, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Left vs Right handed ASCII smileys

The article said "The two original text smileys, (-: to indicate a joke and )-: to mark things that are not a joke", and also "The reverse, or right-handed, smileys, :) have also gained popularity for being a way to avoid having text smileys converted to graphical representations".

According to http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/Orig-Smiley.htm the original was in fact right-handed. Also, as far as I know, most programs will convert the right-handed but not left-handed versions. I've changed tho article to reflect this. ddickison 15:01, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I have written about my motivations for using reverse smileys (which I have done for years) at http://www.asheesh.org/note/reverse%20smileys.html , in case that helps justify that section of the article. 21:11, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

european smiley

this is off the wall, but do europeans tend to draw smiley's with a nose, as opposed to americans? for instance :-) vs. :)

I don't think that's just Europeans. I'm American and I've never EVER made a smiley like this -- :) RACiEP^{Leave a message!} 23:09, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

You have now :-) 109.155.108.202 (talk) 21:28, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

:-( Despair, Inc's Frownies™

Hey, you guys are using a trademark without previous consent... OK, just kidding. Anyway, it's funny, but it's actually true. I think the "Frowny(tm)" episode deserves a section in this article. (http://www.beachbrowser.com/Archives/eVoid/Febuary-2001/Trademark-Frownie-Emoticon.htm) Any vote against? Eumedemito (talk) 04:39, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Inarticulateness re Nirvana; whole Music section

_ _ This entry has no clear meaning; perhaps it is encyclopedic when restated & de-PoV'd by someone who knows something about Nirvana:

• The band Nirvana used there own version of the smiley properly reflecting the easy going 80's smiley, and showing that things have changed.

For starters, presumably it could better begin

• The band Nirvana used a smiley variation of its own devising ....

(Note that a band can be "they" when its members all act individually on behalf of the band, as in "they played 'Old Zip Coon'", but releasing a record they played on, or adopting a finshed graphic that some of them initially conceived, is not such a situation: the band, whether incorporated or legally established as a partnership or not, does (not do) things (thru the agency of suits at the label or the artist who renders the graphic and a band member who oversees that artist), beyond or without individual acts by the members.) It also probably should not go after an older one,

• The band Blink-182 also used an altered smiley face with arrows (similar to Nirvana's) for the cover of their self-titled album in 2003.

as its contributor placed it, but immediately before it.
_ _ The whole section suffers, as these sections tend to, from

1. growing mainly by tacking on the only entry that interests the contributor, at either the top or bottom,
2. a jarring variation in style, and
3. lack of encyclopedic info.

At the least, this discussion of the (possibly copyright or trademark protected) material sounds like exactly the sort of thing that the "discussion" provision in Fair use was intended to promote: the wording conveys almost nothing about the differences, in the absence of the images. So add suitably small images. Chronological ordering is also usually helpful (but in practice requires in the long term the addition of dates of introduction).
--Jerzy•t 05:14, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Who the h*ll is Ball ?

Topic starts off with Ball... Who is he? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Preroll (talk • contribs) 15:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Read the article! It says right there. --RACiEP (talk) 03:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Appearances of smiley

It looks like more than half of the article is devoted to where smileys appear or have appeared. This is out of control and must be pared down. Any thought before I remove most of it?Asher196 (talk) 02:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

"Fictional Use"?

Is this section really necessary? Seems more like trivia for the movie itself... 68.54.90.179 (talk) 22:02, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree, and the limite between emoticon article and this one should be clearer. Simply said: all serious stuff should be here, the emoticon article is more to explain styles, and the List of emoticons to list...?

Here are some sources mentioned here and there on Wikipedia, they seem good to me:

• "Emoticons, she added, should be reserved for use by “naïve tweens on AOL Instant Messenger finding out after-school soccer practice is canceled.” source:(-: Just Between You and Me ;-) link I found reading the Japanese smiley article.
• "Bernard Spain says he's heard Sunkist oranges used smileys in a 1930s ad campaign, and we find smileys in Munro Leaf's 1936 kid's book Manners Can Be Fun. But the Leaf smileys are crude black-and-white stick drawings bearing little resemblance to the finished work of art cranked out by Harvey Ball... " Who invented the smiley face? from ddickison's comment.
• there's also the feather reading links and scientific compartmental studies from the emoticon article talk page... if anyone sets to clean things up. - － Cy21(talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:54, 10 March 2010 (UTC).

External Links

The External Links section of the article seems to be getting too big, unwieldy and spammy. Is the section really needed, as is?

No as per the reasons given above. --FeldBum (talk) 08:38, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I have no strong feelings about which ones to keep if at all. Readers can google for those sites with ease. But if links are kept there shouldn't be more than two or three and the least commercial ones should be the "winner". I just removed some links only to keep it tight (and maybe discourage spammers a bit).--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 00:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Southland Tales?

No body mentioned Pilot Abilene's use of a disfigured smiley as his insignia? (JoeLoeb (talk) 23:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC))

Article needs Clean and Protection!

If you look at the history it's just vandalisme, revert, vadalisme, revert... We need to get this cleaned up and protected. Any good English writers here? － Cy21(talk) 22:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I am not the person for the job, but if that happens I would like to see it nominated afterward for good article status. Arlo Barnes (talk) 11:05, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

In 1963 Samantha Nicole Turner, an American commercial artist, was employed by an advertising company to create a happy face to be used on buttons. His rendition, with bright yellow background, dark oval eyes, and creases at the sides of the mouth, was to become 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]

As quoted, either Samantha has become a masculine name or the pronoun His in the second sentence is wrong. The opening of the second paragraph refers to the design as Ball's design, yet there is no prior mention of Ball in the text of the article (although the picture captions do refer to Harvey Ball). Therefore I believe the name Samantha Nicole Turner must be wrong and should be Harvey Ball. I am going to rewrite the paragraph beginning "In 1963..." and I think the next paragraph should be expanded as well. Anewcharliega (talk) 00:55, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

What I know

All I know about the subject is that you can do some crazy things on your keyboard that some people who may not know about. like this @:-) is a guy wearing a turban. Who knew how to do that? Twizzlergirl (talk) 01:07, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

3-eyed smiley

What is the source of the infamous three-eye smiley? A comic book? or what? --16:11, 23 June 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mizanthrop (talk • contribs)

it appears in the film "evolution", which i think is the origin

trademark

i don't understand ... if the original is public domain, how did Franklin Loufrani trademark it? anyone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.175.57.184 (talk) 04:15, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Name

It was actually most often called a "Happy face" in the 1970s; not sure the term "smiley" came into use until after the rise of computer emoticons... AnonMoos (talk) 12:53, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

We knew the Smiley (as such) long before the spread of emoticons. -- megA (talk) 11:16, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Hippies

We should talk about its popularization at the hands of hippies. --173.3.154.230 (talk) 23:08, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Ken Nordine's Cover for his 1957 jazz/jive talk album

[[Word Jazz] featured a strikingly similar, yet more sylized version of a talking happy face, which may have inspired the canonical version. Spikeysnack (talk) 03:13, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Harvey R. Ball as creator, copyright issues

So I just searched "copyright smiley" (without quotes) in google books. I gave up on page 25. The only relevant sources were the ones I list here. All of them say that Ball was the creator or that he is credited as the creator. A few of them talked about copyright; they said that a) Ball forgot to copyright the smiley face or b) the smiley face is not copyrighted or c) it is in the public domain. I found no sources that give a different creator, and no sources that say that the smiley face is copyrighted.

books that credit Ball as the creator of smiley

Nancy E. Wolff (2007), The Professional Photographer's Legal Handbook (illustrated ed.), Allworth Communications, p. 23, ISBN 1581154771, 9781581154771 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help) Gregory Aharonian, Richard Stim (2004), Patenting Art & Entertainment: New Strategies for Protecting Creative Ideas (illustrated, revised ed.), Nolo, p. 5/12, ISBN 1413300324, 9781413300321 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help) Bob Fenster (2007), The Big Book of Duh: A Bathroom Book (illustrated ed.), Andrews McMeel Publishing, p. 69, ISBN 0740764306, 9780740764301 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help) Darrin M. McMahon (2006), Happiness: a history (illustrated, reprinted ed.), Atlantic Monthly Press, p. 463, ISBN 0871138867, 9780871138866 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help) "H. R. Ball, 79, Ad Executive Credited With Smiley Face", The New York Times biographical service, vol. 32, New York Times & Arno Press, 2001, p. 581, Harvey R. Ball is shown in 1998 with the smiley face he produced. (link in NY Times website) "unknown title", Digit, IDG Communications, p. 84, 2004, However, flipping it upside down turned it into a frown, so Ball added two eyes, and the smiley face as was born. Yet Ball didn't copyright his "friendship campaign" design - and it fell into the realm of public domain - something that (...) {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |issues= ignored (help) Walter de Gruyter & Co (2001), "unknown title", Humor, 14, Mouton de Gruyter: 319, The man who is generally credited with creating the bright yellow smiley face, Harvey R. ball, died in Worcester, Massachusetts on April 12, 2001. At the height of its popularity in 1971, more than 50 million smiley face buttoms were sold, and in 1999 the Postal Service issued a smiley face stamp. In 1963, Mr. Ball was running an advertising and pub- (...)

Newspaper articles do say that there is a dispute about the origin, like this BBC article[1] and Guardian article says that a kid's program used "a crude smiley" but says that it was Ball who forgot to copyright it[2], the New York Times simply credits Ball in his obituary[3].

--Enric Naval (talk) 21:09, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

File:Rally to Restore Sanity Photo 2010 Shankbone.jpg Nominated for Deletion

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Flower-shaped smileys ?

I have some smileys from the late 60's which are not circular on the outside but a sort of blobby flower-like outline. Are these smileys or something else ?Eregli bob (talk) 16:11, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

the ACTUAL iconic smilies

These pieces of clipart ain't them. Here's Ball and his; here is the CUR one; the Wal-Mart battle probably deserves one of theirs. All have much more pleasing dimensions that what we're seeing now.

The Straight Dope article linked above also points out that there are known earlier smilies from the '30s we're not discussing and "Have a Happy Day" precedes the '70s by a decade. — LlywelynII 11:05, 13 September 2013 (UTC)