Getting citations from the smile police. Ugh!

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i suppose you live in america. in australia, people do not often presume anything about anyone else.
what if your grandmother just died or something ? what if you have a facial paralysis ?
i never smile on cue, but i am never questioned about it, so i guess maybe being a male and being australian, i am not subjected to this type of pressure.
i can not just wear a smile. when i smile, it creeps over my face and usually has nothing to do with what other people are experiencing. faking smiling is something i look down on people for in a way. people who fake smiles are like liars in a way to me.


if there is no bar code for that request then it can not be charged for, so it is not available.

if you are behind the counter with the scanner in your hand and i have an item that i am next in line to buy, then i will approach regardless of smiles.

i do not know how you are punished for it unless you are made to feel somehow inadequate or guilty about it.
i do not see the sense in smiling except when i find something funny, so no one can convince me i am doing the wrong thing by not forcing myself to smile.

it is curious to me that in most TV ads, everyone who is saying anything is smiling when they say it. it looks stupid to me. how can they smile about what they are saying when what they are saying is just neutral stuff most of the time.
like for a random example, an ad for insurance where a woman says with a constant smile "I never realized i was doing the wrong thing with my insurance plan........etc"
is she smiling because she likes that she was doing the wrong thing?
is she smiling because she wants to look pretty anyway?
is she smiling because she has been told by the advertising executives that she must look like she likes the viewer (who is in her world just the lens of a camera) ?
i worked for a while in an advertising studio and it was astounding to see people talking and smiling to an inanimate camera as if it was their best friend. talking about shoes and stuff.
i am not able to be made feel bad by people who think that that is reality.

Seems to me the smile police come in two types
1. The ones that believe it is your moral obligation to "smile and look pretty" all the time.
2. The ones that believe in positive thinking (the variety that just involves sweeping negative stuff under the rug) the ones that say "everything happens for a reason" when something bad happens to you, no matter how serious it is) . they tell you off for "looking angry" even though u aren't and just happen to look like u are.

Anyone have any issues the other way? Ie have you every been told off for smiling?
I was walking down the street and I heard a lady yell "what are you smiling at f#€kface?

In my opinion, whether you smile or not is no ones business but yours!

Can assure the OP, this isn't something that happens just to women. I'm a guy who has experienced that kind of nonsense multiple times.

Someone else mentioned, the kind of line of “Cheer up it might never happen”. I always wanted to reply “Too late, it already has.”

My favorite t-shirt when I was a kid said,

"Smile ... It makes people wonder what you're up to."

I was always the practical joking type.

This has ironically not happened to me, and I don't generally smile at anyone. I could imagine it sucking though because once again why do these people that YOU don't know care about what you're feeling and how you're acting.

I completely agree with B19 as a fellow Australian.

And, all these insurance and bank ads, I can't stand them too!

They all look so uncomfortable forced and faked.

I thought actors were supposed to make you NOT think they're just a person pretending.

HA! My manager walked by the other day and told me to smile, and this is exactly the look I gave him. Smooth as ever, I expected him to laugh at my feeble joke but instead he recoiled somewhat and kept moving. Ahh, well. Be careful what you wish for.

It really does make me paranoid though. I get it almost daily, which is strange because by now I'd figure people would stop doing that to me. And I do smile... I just do it when something is funny. I don't understand why anyone else needs me to be smiling constantly in order to feel comfortable. It's bizarre.

It may be an American thing. It's certainly annoying.

It's happened to me all of my life. I generally just ignore it now. I realize that I look angry or depressed, or "like I'm going to kill someone", but that's just the way that I look. I smile if I have a reason to smile. If something is amusing, or is making me happy, I smile. But I don't go walking around all day grinning like an idiot.

I will usually force myself to smile when I am meeting people, when someone approaches me, or if someone smiles at me. It's completely fake. It's not that I don't like the person, but smiling in that situation is completely unnatural for me. If I don't, it's assumed that I'm not friendly, so I have to play by the rules. Although I still don't really know what the rules are.

It may also be a Canadian thing. When I figured it out, I took up practicing smiles in the mirror, like a young teen, only I was hitting old age. I needed to learn to smile because I was moving to a "friendly to seniors" place. I really never smiled before, not automatically, and the practice made my face hurt.

Hint: maybe you are smiling "wide" but not "high." Look in the mirror and say "eeeeeee" - is that your smile? Okay, that was my problem. Now lift your upper lip and even try wrinkling your nose. (I'm glad I'm not where you can reach me.) I'm in good faith here. Watch the smiles in the ads and try some. It felt weird but now the world is nicer to me!

It's totally an American thing and Canada is maybe only slightly less horrible about it. I read that it's why Americans think Russian people are always grim and serious but Russians just hate insincere fake smiles they think you should only smile if you know and like the person, they call them American smiles and hate them and I totally agree why. Americans think everyone should look all happy happy joy joy even when they feel like a big bag of garbage, it's just sickening they want us to bottle up our negative emotions until our digestive systems are ripped apart they think if you're sad Satan will get you there's even a song about about it and they have another song if you're happy and you know it clap your hands and if you refuse they think you're horrible and say no wonder nobody likes you and you'll never have any friends and you'll be an unemployed loser spinster the rest of your life.

That Wednesday face is exactly what I do when told to smile. People usually say something like, "Never mind; that's worse!" And that makes me genuinely want to smile (but I don't, just to spite them).

I hate the smile police.

even though they are actors, they must believe that the sentiments they express and the facial expressions they style would be acceptable to the wide variety of audience they know they are going to be broadcast to.

the thing that irritates me (if i think about it) is that the audience that those ads are designed to appeal to are the majority of people who i see in the streets around me. the ads do work, and it confirms that the mentality of the lumps of meat walking and driving around the streets are quite basic in their concept of reality.

What do you mean? I'm having a bit of trouble interpreting what you're saying.

Yes, I understand their just appealing to their target demographic, a bit too much I might add (e.g. trying far too hard, and at worse limiting their potential pool of customers).

What audience than do you think it's appealing to?

Upper middle-class, caucasian, men and women socialites who spend their time on fashion, and other signs of status e.g. having a good home, boat, etc.?

One's who would need a bank loan to pay for their nice 6 bedroom house or whatever?

the general public is "taken in" by forced smiles.
the "general public"
that means most people out there.

Yep....the ad people are trying to appeal to the demographic stated by B9, and by you, too.

Consumers who they believe will spend quite a bit of money.