Smiley Suicidal

To:

Whoever's in charge
Yahoo! Inc.
Sunnyvale, California

6th July, 2009


Dear Whoever,

I would like to bring to your notice a certain issue (of no minor importance) concerning your Messenger instant messaging application, that has plagued me for several days now.

The smiley on the Yahoo! logo is simply too happy. In fact, as I will demonstrate shortly, it is happy to the point of being suicidal. I first noticed this abnormality a week ago while signing into my account. Something about the Messenger window struck me as odd. On further investigation, I realised that the smiley in question had its mouth too far wide open. It is impossible for a human face to assume the overjoyed expression displayed by this yellow monster.



However, I had to be sure my instincts were right before I reached a conclusion. I conducted a study therefore, regarding how wide a human being may open his/her mouth without lasting damage to his/her jawbones. The results were shocking. My study uses the ratio of the height of the upper portion of the head (from the mouth upwards) to that of the fully open mouth as a measure to compare any two faces.

As the image above shows clearly, the fully open mouth of the Yahoo! smiley is actually wider than its upper head. Out of my human test subjects, not one managed to replicate this feat.



As you can see, the subjects I chose differed in gender, background, ethnicity and even historical era.



Intrigued by the potential consequences of my find, I spoke to Dr. Fonee Skimask of Make Faces, Not War (a non-profit organisation founded with the laudable objective of finding facial expressions that were previously unknown to man). Dr. Skimask confirmed my suspicions. The expression on the Yahoo! smiley's face, if worn by a human, would crack his/her skull, leading to a nearly spontaneous death.

Considering the popularity of Yahoo! Messenger and the average IQ of its users, it is not inconceivable that a user may attempt to copy the murderous smiley's expression, fracturing his/her skull in the process. I would strongly recommend that a warning message be displayed on the Yahoo! sign-in window, as illustrated.



I am confident that Yahoo! Inc. shall rectify the situation as soon as possible, perhaps restricting the smiley's obvious joy to reasonable limits. However, until you do, I shall not be available on Yahoo! - I find that I cannot look at your logo without a sense of foreboding any more...

Sincerely,
A concerned citizen of the Loony Bean

(All right, I admit it - I didn't actually send this letter. But I just might - if I get any more bored :| )