“Emojis are pictograms and seem to transform the movie plot into visual poetry. While the original media was a form of visual representation, the expressed ideas were not intended to be reduced to poetry. Not relying on syllables, I attempted to reduce the plot to the simplest set of icons and while working out the structure nearly created a haiku (too many parts and images).” Ben Z.
The idea Ben brought up of visual poetry in his Task 6: A 90s emoji story intrigued me. When I went to describe my plot, I tried my hardest to break it down into the absolute most essential pieces that needed to be said and then “translate” them into emojis; we didn’t seem that far off. But the poetry aspect… it reminded me of a game I had purchased recently (COVID times = a multitude of family board games in the Patton household) called “Poetry for Neanderthals”. The premise is that you must get your partner to guess a word or phrase by describing it using only one syllable words; reduce your hints to their simplest forms. I believe that this is what emojis seem to do in text conversation at present; they take complex ideas and emotions and reduce and represent them with simple visual representations. Now, I’m not saying that they do this one hundred percent successfully, or that they will become a fluid next language for future generations, but, like the one syllable words in the game, they tend to get their point across a majority of the time. And sometimes what they are saying can be seen as a basic visual poetry.
I also agree with Ben’s statement, “Emoji-mediated language use for this context seems less concise to me than the written or spoken word.” Face to face conversations and descriptive written texts are still superior methods of communicating which allow subtle grammatical and emotional “footprints” to be interpreted by the reader/listener. But, as times change and we have less and less “face-time” with individuals and more and more communication through quick text blasts, I see emojis not becoming a language unto themselves, but rather a more symbiotic partner in our communications. I think we already see this transformation happening with the advent of a GIFs option on most keyboards as well as emojis. The application of visual representations to augment thoughts, emotions, and ideas is something I believe will only flourish as we forward with technology.
By the way, Happy Gilmore is an awesome movie!