In what seems to be a running theme of these tasks, I began the challenge believing that this will be an easy activity with very little that could go wrong. I was wrong yet again! On its surface, this task seemed simple enough, but I was fascinated with how many choices I had to make throughout the process. While I began by focusing on almost full sentences and complex ideas, I quickly realized that the emojis I was looking for to describe the image either did not exist or weren’t to my liking. I ended up moving to a much more literal approach, breaking down each word and trying to find the correct emoji that not only represents that word, but also given the context in which it is written. I began with the title as it is quite literal and what I thought would be easy to interpret. There is also something to be said about starting with the title and framing the rest of your work about that.

As I wanted to stay honest to the challenge, I did not think about the ease or difficulty of the movie I chose. It was the last thing I watched and I wanted to see if it was going to be difficult to translate to emoji. If I were to chose based on ease of modification, I would go with very simple words, both in the description and in the title. As with many of these tasks, I now have a greater respect for translations as so many choices of interpretation must be made that may alter the meaning of the original work.

I’ve always thought of emojis as silly features to include with messages to add a playful touch to the message. After reading Bolter, I have come to see them more as a “mode of representation” that bring the ideas to life and add an element of joy to the message.

P.S. Here is a great little emoji game that I found. Enjoy!

https://www.sporcle.com/games/felix/movies-by-emoji

Dumb Money

Everyday people flip the script on Wall Street turning GameStop into one of the world’s hottest companies. In the middle of everything is Keith Gill, a regular guy who starts it all by sinking his life savings into the stock. When his social media posts start blowing up, so does his life and the lives of everyone following him. As a stock tip becomes a movement, everyone gets wealthy — until the billionaires fight back and both sides find their worlds turned upside down.