World Smile Day is celebrated every year on the first Friday of October month, and this year it will take place on 1st October 2021. The day marks to promote simple acts of kindness and encourage more and more people to do something that can make someone smile.
Who does not want to keep smiling? I do and I know you also want to! Smile is that little curve that can remove the ugliest stress from your life. And it is even better when you become a reason to make someone else smile. World Smile Day is all about this.
Smile Day History
Harvey Ball, a graphic artist, and ad man from Massachusetts, invented the smiley face symbol in the year 1963. And soon after, the symbol gained popularity. It became one of the most used symbols in the world.
It is not only used in texts, but we could see its use in movies as well. Famous Hollywood flicks like ‘Forest Gump’ and ‘Watchmen’ are examples of the same.
The yellow circled, black dotted eyes symbol was a little different as it was originally created with an oblong smile.
Harley feared the misuse of the smiling symbol and he realized that something should be done. Because it was so overly used, it lost its main purpose of spreading kindness and goodwill.
World Smile Day became official in 1999. It was celebrated with the only motive of doing small acts of kindness in order to make someone smile to brighten up their day.
In the year 2001, Harvey Ball passed away and the Harvey Ball World Smile Day foundation was set up to pay tribute to Harvey. The motto of his foundation is “enhancing this world, one smile”.
Smile Day Timeline
- 1963 – Harvey Ball created the smiley face
- The 1970s- smiley face was used politically, also in movies, cartoons, and comics
- The 1990s- smiley face gains popularity with the advent of the internet and is much used
- 1999- World Smile Day gets official
- 2001- Harvey Ball leaves for his heavenly abode, leaving behind a smiling face
How to Celebrate World Smile Day 2021?
Sometimes all it takes to cheer you up and brighten your day is a smile. We all can do that and make a difference on World Smile Day.
On World Smile Day, officials conduct events at local shops, markets, parks, and schools to aware them of the day. They also promote the event online.
There are so many things one can do on World Smile Day. There are lots of gift ideas online like smile cards, smile certificates, etc. For gifting someone a real smile, you can provide food to the homeless, present balloons for children at an orphanage or visit people at the hospital with flowers and fruits, and many more. The list is endless. The only thing we need to remember is that it is our kindness only that will take us to places and keep us happier and satisfied.
Apart from this, don’t forget to smile at yourself. It’s a good idea to do things that make others happy but in all of that don’t forget about being happy yourself. Of course, making others happy will bring a smile to your face as well but there are others who simply have other reasons to be happy about like watching their favorite movie or eating their favorite food (their favorite ingredient being a smile). Whatever it is, keep smiling and make others smile too!
World Smile Day Theme 2021
World Smile Day 2021 theme is “do an act of kindness, help one person smile”. This theme is all the more important today as people have forgotten to smile now as the world is going through a tough phase for the past two years. There have been certain uncontrollable events that have taken place since the outbreak of the deadly pandemic and the world is in no mood to smile.
World Smile Day is here to remind us all of the importance of that little smile. It is a reminder to never forget the small things that make us happy and bring a smile to our faces. This year’s theme focuses only on the little efforts that we can put forward to show some kindness to the world and make a big change with that small act of kindness.
World Smile Day Quotes 2021
To help you celebrate this special day, below are some very special quotes rounded up to bring about that smile on your face.
Happy World Smile Day to you all and keep smiling!