The evolution of emoticons
Published: 12 Mar 2004 13:35 GMT
Obviously, in most cases, the product and the shape of the product dictated the form of the emblem, but in one case in the 60s, the smiley took the form of a button, which was invented by the subsidiary office of a large insurance company to reassure the staff about the prospects of the company's future expansion.
Initially, that badge simply had the upward crisp-shaped line of a smiling mouth -- and no eyes. They quickly realised that the whole meaning could be reversed by wearing the button upside down. So the eyes were added.
You argue that smiles have become more accepted over time, a departure from the old antismile prejudice that someone is "all eyes and teeth." What changed?
I think that the two most important developments that changed everything in terms of the exchange of smiles today were the revolution in the standard of dental hygiene, care and surgery through the 19th century and into the 20th, and the invention of photography and later of motion pictures.
Both of those [were key] separate developments, one of which relates to the infrastructure of the face and the other to the way people could see images of faces. In the mid-19th century, in Victorian England, for example, smiling was on the whole unacceptable. It certainly had nothing to do with what polite people did in conversation or in social situations.
Faint smiling was thought to be what nice people did. Smiling with your mouth open was thought to be at best improper. One's teeth were generally pretty terrible, and of course the impression that people got of facial beauty had absolutely no relation to the condition of their teeth. For example, Queen Victoria's prime minister, Lord Palmerston, was the very first person to be called tall, dark and handsome, even though he had prominent teeth missing because of horse-riding accidents.
Your book talks about how a smile can represent wisdom, lust or desire. There's Mona Lisa's famous smile. But now, smiles are being used as punctuation marks. Is that too one dimensional?
You just have to pick up a magazine or take any sample of any electronic medium, motion picture or television to get a vast catalogue of bright, sunny smiles. I was amazed to see the other day an evolutionary smiley that has three eyes.
It has become for us a symbol of health and happiness. We are also prepared to see people with wide-open mouths as beautiful. This would have confused most people in the course of human history.
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