Task 6: Emoji Story
By: Ping Cao
My comment + reflection:
Hi Ping! I looked through most of the posts for this task and it seemed like many of our classmates chose Squid Game! You’re right to say that the title alone (when coded with emojis) can easily spoil the answer. It’s quite a literal transcription, and I agree that anyone with previous knowledge of this show or keeps up with mainstream popular culture would be able to decipher this, and “get” some of the less literal transcriptions in the rest of your story. I was also impressed by how concise and clear you were able to structure your story. I found mine to be a bit longwinded, so I really appreciate that yours is so succinct. I especially love the compact “text message” style of your creation, and that each scene and character was introduced consistently with four emojis. Although you mentioned that you wanted to avoid using too much repetition, I actually found that some of the repetition that you used was quite strategic, especially in distinguishing the game stages and pivotal scenes.
Your insightful thoughts on the decoding process really stood out to me, and Zaltzman’s quote that you shared in relation instantly caught my eye. In my own post, I had (rhetorically) asked if emojis could ever be universal, since situational context and upbringing could drastically affect interpretations of the literal and figurative meaning of these symbols. Would there be misunderstandings in decoding the meaning, even in tasks such as this? What a coincidence that I was able to find an indirect response to this question in your post! Your example with the Chinese New Year “firecracker” further stretched my reflection about emojis, as I often find myself relying on emojis that may have a figurative meaning or image associated with what I want to convey (especially in a different language). I think it’s also great to see that there has since been an expansion with the diversity of emojis we could use, especially pertaining to multicultural discourse.
And thank you for linking these interesting resources on emojis/encoding! I’ll make sure to check them out later.