Here is the title and brief synopsis of the plot of the last movie, TV show, or book I watched/read, in emoji form:

edit: I lost my emojis when I published this post, apparently WordPress doesn’t like them, so I had to redo it and post it as a picture:

I found this oddly challenging! I relied more on trying to find emoji representations of words, but that often didn’t seem possible, so in some cases tried to capture an idea more than a singular word. It does seem like emojis are much better able to portray concepts or ideas rather than singular words, with some exceptions. I did start with the title, because that seemed like the place to start. I think this is because that is how I am used to things working. I always know the title of something before I begin reading or watching it – it is how most media is structured, and so becomes the default starting point for me. There wasn’t a thought process about it, as it is so ingrained in me.

I didn’t choose the work based on how easy it would be, and actually found it rather difficult! Perhaps I would have been better off choosing something more straightforward with an easier to convey plot.

I’m not completely comfortable with emojis. I do use them in normal day-to-day texting, but to a rather small degree – generally just to convey straightforward emotion. I resisted using emojis for a very long time, due to a feeling like they were a lesser form of communication. This bias eventually gave way to practicality and convenience – emojis are much faster to use, and can provide emotional and contextual content to a message very easily. For example, they can convey when something is meant to be humorous, which is not always easy to capture in a short text message – sarcasm especially does not translate well to short texts. I now have no issue using emojis in casual conversation, and find them quite helpful and useful, but do not have the same fluency that I see in some people who can utilize them for more than just emotion and tone representation. I think this made this task a bit more difficult – if I was a regular user of more than just the variations of the smiley-face, I think I could have better represented the plot of the media that I chose. I think this is a really clear representation that this is a new form of language in many ways – it requires new skills to become adept and fluent at both understanding and using it.