The Original Smiley Face

I don't know if the smiley face was the first emoji. It certainly hasn't been the last. There is some authoritative body that approves new emojis. I kid you not. We're back to Egyptian caves and hieroglyphics. I don't know what the last emoji count was. It's several hundred.

Unicode Consortium

A nonprofit organization based in Silicon Valley, is the official body that reviews, approves, and sets standards for new emojis. Founded in 1991, they ensure that emojis are consistent across all digital devices. They work with tech companies like Apple and Google to integrate these symbols into the Unicode Standard.

There is a probability thought problem that claims there is a chance (it's not a big one) of a team of monkeys writing the complete works of Shakespeare. Yeh, so? I bet they can't write a sentence using all emojis. Can AI?

The above creation, thought to be the first smiley face, is a creation of my good friend Lady M., a woman who joined the next to last company I worked for around 2007. Like any new person, she "came aboard." New people are always "coming aboard" and the rest of us are happy to have them "on board."

Lady M. likes to leave her version of a smiley face on things. She drew it on my white board and I left it there when I left in 2010. My guess is its been erased by now.

In one of her many employment incarnations, Lady M. once found herself delivering U.S. mail in New Jersey. She drove one of those funny looking trucks, and became quite adept at maneuvering it and backing up it up into tight spaces. There isn't any open parking space Lady M. can't back into and still leave room for the doors to open. You're in good hands.

I commented on the appearance of the smiley face in this year's Christmas card, and Lady M. revealed the back story. If Lady M. were into graffiti, we would be treated to the image all over the place. Sort  of like a caricature Kilroy Was Here. However, Lady M. is more law-abiding. In a recent email she revealed the genesis on the smiley face.

It started when I started working at the post office in 1999. When a customer put their mail on hold. The carrier would take a bucket and attach a slip of paper with the address on it. Anytime I had a street name with two Os in it I made the smiley face. It’s going on 26 years now.

Would Bansky tell us this much?

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com