Ladies and gentleman this is not a compilation of your worst nightmares nor a demon created by the dark lord Satan with the soul purpose of destroying the integrity of man but the new mascot for Mcdonald's happy meal. His name is Happy-really creative name people at Mcdonalds-and he and his wide smile have been terrorizing people all across the world since May. If you can't tell by now this thing creeps me out, so much so that I am typing this post as fast as I physically can so I can scroll down the page and be free of his serial-killer-gaze.
My fear of this thing is not alone for all across the internet I have found blogs, videos, and memes depicting people's horror and terror over this monstrosity. Many are asking why Mcdonalds would create him in the first place or why they continue to keep him even though the majority of people who have seen this have had the following reaction:
Though those questions are valid after I had climbed out from under my bed and walked around my house with a butcher knife checking if all the doors and windows were locked so Happy couldn't sneak in and devour my soul while I slept I started wondering why exactly I found him so creepy? After a few hours I realized that-at least in my case-the reason was a combination of two things: One, Happy's features are too human and two they're too ambiguous.
You see, the mouth and the eyes are the most expressive features on the face for most of the creatures on earth, especially for humans. A single quirk of the lips or the barest glimmer in the eyes can tell you more about a person's thoughts or feeling about something than if they had spoke. In Happy's case though his features aren't photorealistic they have some characteristics that distance him from a cartoon, like the shadowing on his teeth, or the lack of an upper lid on his eyes or the slight bags under said eyes. These jarring contrast leave people in a limbo like state trying to decide if the face is more human or more cartoon.
I believe the people who find Happy creepy are the ones whose brain sub countrontously decided that Happy is more human and this realization opens up another can of worms. Now that they have decided that this thing is human they have to figure out what is his motive? Sure, his smile looks wide and genueally happy but his eyes look so tired and strained like he's a college student who has spent the last three nights studying for a final and is just managing to hold his sleep deprived psyche together.
This ambiguity on his motives and what he is feeling is causes us to be anxious and the fact that he is not completely human and thus we might not be able to destroy if he comes after us is what makes us fear him. I know I may be reading a little too into this but if anybody ever a box with this things face on it near me I'll rip it up, set it on fire, and scatter it's ashes to the four corners of the earth!
Pics and Gifs Courtesy of
http://media3.s-nbcnews.com/i/newscms/2014_21/453111/140519-mcdonalds-happy-jms-2104_a3215da73bb1e4cd364ed5d51974a5a5.jpg
http://media3.s-nbcnews.com/i/newscms/2014_21/453111/140519-mcdonalds-happy-jms-2104_a3215da73bb1e4cd364ed5d51974a5a5.jpg
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