What movie, show or book does my emoji story represent?

I chose work (I don’t want to say movie, TV show or book to not give hints!) that I’ve very recently encountered. At first, I tried to rely on words alone to create the emoji story. The title is a direct word translation, using emojis. This came to me quite easily, so I stuck with it. I then googled the synopsis and tried to directly translate it using words to describe the story. However, after a while, I gave up, as it was not really turning out the way I had hoped. I then transitioned to relying on a combination of ideas. I broke the story down by title, cast (stars) and story (script). The script is a very high-level overview of a few of the main story lines and relationships between characters. It is not necessarily in a linear sequence but generally represents ideas in the story, strung together. In the end, I was quite happy with the result!

Because I found it too difficult to use syllables and words to create my emoji story, the fact that I used ideas makes it quite personal to my own interpretation of the story. It also requires the “reader” to know the story to guess (aside from the title). This is in line with Bolter’s comments (p.59): “Although the writer and reader may use
words to describe and interpret the pictorial message, two readers could explain the same message in different words, and speakers of different languages could share the same system of picture writing.” There are a few emojis (alone and in combination) that I used to represent things that they may not normally represent. It takes some imagination to decifer the story. It is entirely possible (and probable) that someone else who knows this story well would have used different emojis in a much different order than I chose.

Using ideas to select my emojis also made me reflect on the use and interpretation of emojis themselves in a more general sense. In the same way that we use capitalization and punctuation to communicate emotion in text, as discussed by Zaitzman in her podcast, The Alluztionist, we do the same while using emojis. These communication practices can be very cultural. This is also reflected by Bolter (p.59), “picture writing is perhaps constructed culturally (even today)”. But, not only is it cultural by ethnicity, race, geography, society…etc, but interpretation can vary by gender and generation. In my personal experience, I notice differences in how I use emojis with my mother and how I may use them with my peers. There is a completely different understanding of this type of picture writing between these two generations (and between my generation and the next). If I were to distinguish between the two, the older generation would tend to take the pictures in the emojis more literal than the younger. With the age of the internet and communication via social media, there is an established understanding that tends to occur using emojis that give them a different meaning than the literal translation of the image itself. For example, someone may use the cross bones and skull emoji after someone says something is funny. This emoji may have the literal representation of death, but it doesn’t mean something negative in this scenario. Using the term “dead” actually refers to the person thinking that something is hilarious.

Another commonly used form of communication that should be considered today is “animated picture writing” like GIFs. GIFs have gained popularity of the last few years and are used as commonly as emojis. Katy Steinmetz, a writer for TIME, wrote an article examining the prefered use of GIFs and emojis by youner generations compared to plain text. Many “feel that images can paint a clearer picture than words” and that “GIFs can intersect with moments of pop culture that convey a far broader range of sentiments (and inside jokes)”. (Steinmetz, 2017). In my own experience, I feel this to be true. With the addition of animation to the image, it opens up another level of emotional expression. In many social media apps, GIFs can be searched for using keywords or can be selected under a range of tabs that reflect a variety of emotions: happy, excited, disappointed, sad, tired, angry, love, celebration…etc. With that said, in relation to this task, I don’t know if it would be appropriate to try to use GIFs to communicate a story. Considering there are likely GIFs that are directly associted to many of the stories we’ve chosen for this task, it might make the guessing game a little too obvious! Where is the fun in that?

References:

Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. doi:10.4324/9781410600110

Steinmetz, K. (2017). Forget Words, a Lot of Millennials Say GIFs and Emojis Communicate Their Thoughts Better Than English. Retrieved from: https://time.com/4834112/millennials-gifs-emojis/

Zaitzman, H. (2019). New Rules McCulloch, G in The Allustionist. https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/new-rules