I have never liked any emoji even before they became emojis. Especially the idiotic happy face that began it all.
I wasn’t aware of the smiley face in its infancy because it was an inhouse graphic created for State Mutual Life Assurance Company in 1963 to make their employees happier about a corporate merger. The face quickly moved beyond those bounds, and in Denver, in the late sixties, a jewelry store passed out happy-face stickers for a promotion, so that sappy yellow face was everywhere. I don’t know why — perhaps because it was everywhere — I couldn’t bring myself to like the insipid thing.
Even worse was after Hallmark took over the design in 1971, added “Have a happy day,” and then expected people to . . . I don’t know . . . give Hallmark happy days by buying happy faces, I guess.
I disliked “Have a happy day,” even more when it replaced “thank you,” as a farewell to shoppers who’d completed a purchase. I was depressed a lot back then, which made that whole “have a happy day” thing seem like a slap in the face, but more than that, it was so utterly phony, it depressed me further. Ironically, I’d give anything to have people go back to “Have a happy day” if they’d only get rid of today’s version, “Have a good one.” That sure makes me cringe! “Have a good one what?” I ask when I’m feeling particularly curmudgeonly. I can’t help but think of caregivers asking their elderly constipated patients if they’d had a “good one” that day.
In my life, almost always things I like disappear, most recently the most useful sprinkler I’ve ever found, with several water patterns as well as an ability to convert it to a hand-held sprinkler. But that sappy face? Nope. Now that it’s a global necessity, embedded in almost all computer programs, it will hound me forever.
Admittedly, I’ve used various emojis when trying to elucidate what I thought a witty comment, but that didn’t always work well.
Many years ago, I signed up for a dating site at the instigation of a married friend who wanted the vicarious experience. I eventually ended up communicating with one fellow who mentioned that he loved laughing and humor, and I don’t remember the comment I made, but it was supposed to be a humorous response to his humorous comment, and to emphasize the point, I added a happy face emoji. He took the comment at face value, and got nasty with me. I explained that the emoji was an indicator of it being a joke, and he got even more angry and said he didn’t want to have anything to do with anyone who had to use happy faces to explain what she was saying. Apparently, the only one who was supposed to funny was him. I tried a different site, and there he was again. So, to my friend’s disappointment, that was the end of my efforts.
But not, alas, the end of emojis. If I do grit my teeth and use any emoji to end a text conversation, it’s something simple like a heart or a tree, but mostly, I stick with (gasp!) words. It’s so much better for my peace of mind.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
Bertram's Blog 
April 28, 2026 at 7:41 am
To adapt, paraphrase, and clean up some George Carlin:
That’s the trouble with ‘have a nice day’; it puts all the pressure on you. Now you’ve gotta go out and somehow manage to have a nice day….Let someone wish me a crappy day. “Have a crappy day!” That’s easy. All you have to do is get up some mornings.
April 28, 2026 at 7:58 am
That made me laugh! It certainly does put the pressure on!