Smiley Faces

From the Fall 1971 Breakaway yearbook

 

 

Perhaps it’s true that “smilin’ faces, sometimes they don’t tell the truth,” just as the son says. Undisputed through it may be, the Truth remains that these faces have been around Midwesterners since early summer.

 

The fad is dying, some say. The campus and its students have been smiled to death in the form of purses, playing cards, tee-shirts, puppets, pillows, necklaces, rings and almost anything merchandised in our local stores.

 

KOIL displays the likeness on their Good Guy Hitline survey sheets and on their “Have a Happy Day” bumper stickers. King’s Food Hot and Hinky Dinky both use the symbol locally to develop their own institutional advertising.

 

Smiling face stickers and buttons have been a big seller. Even campus ministers the Rev. Leonard Barry and the Rev. Dave Kehret can be seen walking around campus with the glowing faces pinned to their lapels. On rare occasions the bootstrappers have been known to replace the “American, Love It or Leave It” sticker on their briefcases with a smiling face or two.

 

“I’m sick of the faces,” said Junior Rosemary Hilgert. “They’re plastic and they demand a plastic response,” Many other students predict that the seeming smiles will smother in their hypocrisy.

 

Despite the supposed artificial picture painted by these smiles, the fact is that these happy little faces have proven to be actually useful for a number of UNO students.

 

“I use them in student teaching,,” replied senior Paulette Connor. Paulette instructs eleven mentally retarded children in the Westgate Cottages for her student teaching assignment. “I have a smiling face puppet I use there for teaching language arts,” she continued, “and I use the stickers to put on the good papers my students turn in.”

 

The buttons and stickers are also used in hospitals where many UNO students work to help boost patient morale.

 

Whether or not the happy faces contribute to the cause of happiness around them or simply provide a commercial vehicle for new and successful products—it’s not known. Bu the response that they’ve received certainly indicates a desire for some type of happiness. Perhaps it’s just that warm feeling people like to experience upon seeing a “real” smiling face.