“Everywhere we look, we see the big yellow smiley face. Everywhere we listen, we hear ‘Have a nice day.’”
—Eric G. Wilson, Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, 2008.
the big yellow smiley face
One thought on “the big yellow smiley face”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
There is something very uncanny about the yellow smiley face, in that yellow is so associated with sickness and aging. It’s an in-your-face reminder of mortality (and therefore a companion to the white-faced circus clown whose frozen grimace invites us to the underworld). I did a search for the phrase “yellow smile,” and I came across such adjectives as “ghastly,” “sickly,” “weary,” “mocking,” “devilish,” “jaundiced,” “angry,” and “savage.”