I’ve chosen to link to A. MacPherson’s emoji story post:
I first connected to their post with the layout of their emoji story, and blog post which was similar to mine. I found other peoples’ stories were much longer as they went into more detail of different scenes. I interpreted the assignment more like MacPherson, as we both chose to present our stories more as a synopsis than a full description. Another cultural connection was that we both connected this to the game charades, both of which are turning ideas or text into visual forms without words. The challenge of choosing symbols was apparent in both of our posts, and using the emojis as symbols instead of as syllables or other direct word connections.
The choice to find a movie that was ‘easy’ to represent through visual forms was also apparent in both of our posts. I would emphasize how difficult it can be for others to interpret symbols or images in the same way. MacPherson’s idea to use symbols for context instead of direct words is helpful to make it more universally interpretable instead of depending on English translations. I would argue that much of the difficulty comes from the wide variation on how any individual from a similar cultural background would interpret each symbol, let alone people from other backgrounds, experiences or even age groups. All of these could add to the challenge. I didn’t think, when I did my emoji story, about how the title might be different in different languages which is something I would like to go back and address.