How the Rubber Duckie Became a Symbol of Happiness—and Climate Research

© Mark Obusan, Flickr Vision, Getty Images

Real ducks are white, so why are rubber ducks yellow? What caused this? Well, if you think about it, rubber ducks are supposed to look like baby ducks, so it makes sense that they’re yellow. Adult ducks have long necks and bills, but we never think of them as being yellow. As humans began to domesticate some kinds of wild mallards, their bodies grew large, and their wings shrunk to the point where they could only fly a few yards at a time. Their bodies also grew fat, they started to stand upright when walking, and so on. The rubber duck is modeled after the babies of these kinds of domesticated ducks.

© John Eveson/Visuals Unlimited, Inc., Visuals Unlimited, Getty Images

It’s not very well known, but the rubber duck’s history goes back to the 19th century. They were apparently created as toys alongside the development of rubber-manufacturing technology. Until 1970, they were a niche product, but then they were thrust into the public eye by Jim Henson. In Sesame Street, Ernie’s favorite toy is his rubber duckie, and he sings about it in the song by that name. The song was recorded in 1970 and charted at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100. Little Richard even went on to do a cover. We might have Henson to thank for the rubber duckie appearing in bays and rivers around the world as a giant art object, and the bizarre fact that scientists are keeping an eye on them as they make major contributions to the study of global tidal currents and how their movements affect climate.

On Sesame Street, Little Richard sings “Rubber Duckie.”

Here are some examples of what the rubber duckie has been up to.

Sony’s Action Cam “DUCKDOM”
VICE Japan has teamed up with Sony’s Action Cam to create a mysterious video featuring “Action Duck,” the rubber duck. We even went to the trouble of making a real storyboard and traveling to Australia to shoot it. Can you believe that? Here’s the video:

Contributions to Climatology
In 1992, a shipping container going to Tacoma, Washington, from Hong Kong hit some bad weather and ended up dropping a container full of 30,000 Chinese-made rubber ducks into the Pacific Ocean. The ducks started to flow out of the damaged container. Two thirds of them rode ocean currents southward, drifting ashore in Indonesia, Australia, and even South America, but the other third went north, riding alongside the Pacific side of South and North America. A year later, some were found in Alaska, and others went even farther west, arriving in Japan three years later after nearly doing a full lap around the Pacific Ocean. Some of them actually passed through the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean and were apparently trapped in and transported by ice there. We know this because eight years later, in 2000, some of the rubber ducks, now in the Atlantic Ocean, were released from the ice and went back to floating, and they were found on the northern Atlantic side of North America in 2003. The UK’s Times newspaper reported on this in 2007, saying that the ducks were headed toward the shores of England and Ireland. If you can believe it, this has all played a major role in climate and tidal research.

Image by NordNordWest

The Rubber Duck Project
Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s Rubber Duck Project was created in 2007 and has since visited locations around the world, covering Europe, South America, Asia, Oceania, the Middle East, and North America. The idea behind it is that the rubber duck is a symbol of happiness and childhood memories, giving comfort to different people regardless of their nationality, age, and race, without political distinction. I’m sure a lot of people heard about the rubber duck that deflated in Beijing.

Action Cam by Sony: Action Ducks on RC Cars Meet Animals

At the end of the day, you just can’t hate a duck. They’re symbols of utopia.