The smiley face graphic was popularized in the early part of the 70s by two brothers, Bernard and Murray Spain. The Spain brothers seized upon the smiley face graphic in a general novelty selling campaign. Soon the brothers were producing smiley face t-shirts, coffee mugs and even smiley face bumper stickers.
Along with the smiley face image, many of these products carried the tagline ‘Have a happy day’. There were an estimated fifty million smiley face buttons spread throughout the United States by 1972, at which point the smiley face button fad began to fade.
It was in early 1988 that the smiley face exploded into popular culture, and became the primary symbol adopted by the subculture of Acid Techno music enjoyers in the UK. Within no time the smiley face had caught on sweeping the country as the logo of Acid Techno. As the music evolved it went from dream state symbol to a counter culture image for the underground scene and its associated drug ecstasy. Today the digital world uses the smiley extensively featuring many versions in email messages and forum bulletin boards, its use is unlikely to go away any time soon. . . .
