At the beginning, I was so excited about this assignment because who doesn’t love emojis? I use emojis all the time when I am communicating and I find that an emoji can represent my feelings better than just words.
Shortly into this assignment, I was so frustrated as it became very difficult to convey what I am trying to say with just emojis. I thought I knew my emojis very well but I had to scroll through them over and over again just to find the right one to use. Most of the time, it didn’t even make complete sense. I thought this would be an easy assignment that might take me an hour at maximum to complete. I ended up doing this through a couple of days because I would sit there for half an hour being frustrated about not finding the right emoji to use. I also had trouble with using the emoji from the keyboard so I had to use my phone.
For this task, I relied more on ideas and the actual words instead of syllables. I find that using syllables would be very confusing as the reader wouldn’t know when you are using syllables and when you are using the actual objects without prior explanation. I started with the title right away. I asked at least ten of my friends if they knew which movie I was referring to and only two of them were able to guess the right answer.
Something that might be logical to me might not be for someone else. The two friends that guessed it correctly are also my closest friends that know what kind of movies I like. I feel at least in part this was the reason they were able to guess correctly.
I did choose the movie based on how easy it was to visualize. I had a couple of movies in mind that I wanted to do but quickly scrapped the idea. It’s either that the title gives it away (ie: Harry Potter lightning) or that the synopsis is way too long or abstract. I ended up with my choice of movie because I had a general idea of what main emojis I wanted to use.
Doing this assignment makes me wonder if this is exactly how people in prehistoric times communicated. Our emojis are basically hieroglyphics. I find that thought interesting. Although I love using emojis, I would still prefer to use words if I can only choose one mode of communication.
I love what you did for the title!
My thought process was: it’s a movie! Coconut [spoilers] so it was a really clever way to engage how we interpret the literal meaning of the emoji to get the title.
I have no idea! I’m not sure if it is because I am just not getting it, or because I have never heard of the movie. I think that is part of the difficulty of a symbolic language – it depends so much on knowing the context and having a shared understanding of what the symbols mean. Perhaps this is why most symbolic languages were replaced with ones that depended less on shared meanings and interpretation?
I am curious to know what the movie is, though!
Hey Brian, The movie is “Coco”!
Thanks Linda!
This is one of our favourite family movies to watch!! I agree with Linda, a very creative way to get the title of the movie! Also, the emojis really lends itself to the plot of this movie and I like how you went into detail about it too. This also makes me think that we need so many more emojis to represent all the cultures we have – which could have added to your story. Great job!
Hey Sasha,
It was a difficult task. I actually started off with writing the synopsis and then trying to find emojis that works! Also my favorite family movie!
I didn’t know the movie, but your title description instantly let me get the word and I think a google proved my suspicions were correct (especially when correlating with the rest of your emoji story!)
I appreciate that you highlighted that your movie selection ended up being shaped by the emojis you know you had available to use. I think a lot of us ended up doing this, and I think it’s fascinating: our choices are so shaped by the “language” we have available to us. A possible link to Language Shaping the Way we think in week 2?
😀
Jamie, Absolutely with the link! Movie is “Coco”!
The movie is “Coco”!!!