Even Happy Has a Breaking Point

If I have to hear Happy one more time I will spend the rest of my life re-enacting the more barbaric scenes from Game of Thrones in public. The song crossed the threshold from ubiquitous into something closer to psychological warfare a long time ago. And yet—the internet is full of people who genuinely love it, who filmed themselves dancing to it in living rooms and parking lots and airport terminals, who let it do exactly what Pharrell Williams built it to do.

When he sat down with Oprah to watch some of those fan videos, he cried. Actual tears, on television, from joy. Which is the last thing I expected from him, and also the most disarming thing I’d seen all week. Pharrell in tears is a vastly better version of Pharrell than Pharrell being effortlessly cool. It turns out the man behind the most relentlessly cheerful song on the planet is actually moved by what it does to people. I didn’t see that coming. I respect it.