Talk:Smiley

Addition of Worcester/Guarantee "Smile Power" campaign (1963)

I recently added a 1972 Morehead News article that traces smiley buttons to the 1963 'Smile Power' campaign by two insurance companies. The source quotes company president John Adam Jr. on the purpose of distributing the buttons and the choice not to trademark the design.

This addition provides clear, contemporary evidence of the insurance companies' role and identifies the "two affiliated insurance companies" reported in the 1971 Associated Press wire photo. I linked both the 1971 AP coverage and the brand-name history to the same citation for consistency.

Reference: I cited Where Did 'Smiley' Come From? — Morehead News (Sept. 7, 1972), p. 11,(https://www.newspapers.com/article/morehead-news-where-did-smiley-come/155482637/ ) via Newspapers.com, to substantiate the insurance companies' early use of smiley buttons and provide a direct account from their president on the purpose and decision not to trademark the smiley.-- Bayoustarwatch (talk) 16:07, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Note on removed claims in "Digital evolution" section

I removed two statements from the "Digital evolution of the smiley" section:

• The claim that Alcatel included a digital smiley as a welcome screen in 1996.
• The claim that the SmileyWorld toolbar contained "887 icons by 2003."

Both of these were supported only by promotional material from The Smiley Company (primary/self-published source) and lacked independent, secondary verification. Per WP:RS and WP:V, such claims should not be presented as fact without reliable sourcing. If independent sources are found in the future, the material can be restored with proper attribution. ---Bayoustarwatch (talk) 12:25, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Unclear sentences and content

What does the following sentence (in section "As a brand name") mean?:
"The Spain Brothers used the slogan "Have a nice day," which is now more frequently associated with the smiley face rather than the slogan itself."--Geke (talk) 06:40, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, this section (and honestly most of the article) feels like a lot of original research. There’s way too much about random uses of smiling faces, poems mentioning “smiling,” and stuff about the surname, which really have nothing to do with the Smiley logo. Other articles don’t do this. Google doesn’t go into detail about the number, Amazon doesn’t talk about the rainforest beyond a short note, and Mickey Mouse doesn’t list every time someone drew a mouse, or when Nike's slogan Just Do It was written in text for the first time.81.97.113.131 (talk) 19:07, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

The smiley face is NOT like Google, Amazon, the online, the Nike Swoosh, Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty, or Garfield, which have known creators and creation dates. There is debate over the origin of the "smiley face." Franklin Loufrani said "A prehistoric man probably invented the smiley face in some cave, but I certainly was the first to register it as a trademark" (Wal-Mart fights to keep the smiley face: Retail giant says symbol personifies its price-reducing policy, but London-based firm says it secured rights years ago.(CNN)July 5 2006) The word "smiley" the ideogram are link. " In 2023, the Smiley company filed SAD lawsuits in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida against hundreds of small businesses operating on the Etsy and other online platforms, claiming copyright infringement for use of the word smiley in sales listings and demanding settlements of $2,500 USD each. The lawsuit was ultimately dropped after the businesses hired a collective lawyer." (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Smiley_Company&oldid=1315736832) ---Bayoustarwatch (talk) 16:00, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

Very American centric view here

i assume the simple smiley face also appears in other cultures?? ~2026-10868-20 (talk) 11:09, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

They have! However, the yellow and black smiley face has seemingly been popularized from america. ~2026-18291-08 (talk) 18:34, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Ján Ladislaides, 1635

I tried to add:

Peter Brindza from the National Archives at Trenčín, Slovakia, presented a 1635 document in which notary Ján Ladislaides put a schematic face by his signature.

While the expression on the face may be ambiguous, in the text, Ladislaides states that the examined documents had no problems, so the sketch has been interpreted as a happy face.

but the sources are Daily Mail, International Business Times and Sputnik news, which are discouraged in Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Sources. Other sources such as El emoticono más antiguo del mundo tiene casi 400 años y apareció en un documento legal en Eslovaquia, Un emoticono del siglo XVII may be more reliable but seem to be citing the 2017 articles with or without acknowledgment. Is there a reliable source for this? Perhaps in Czech? -- Error (talk) 20:31, 29 July 2026 (UTC)